


windows all closed

by cupofkey



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Humor, Blood and Violence, Dark, Dreams, Existential Angst, F/F, Found Family, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Memory Alteration, Military Training, Not Shippy, Nyotalia, One Shot, Superpowers, action and fighting, dennor and sufin r real tho, hongice is only teased :/, inception inspired?, league of legends inspired, nordic fam, not completely depressing!, supersoldiers? kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 10:24:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20813576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupofkey/pseuds/cupofkey
Summary: In some place unknown, the military's best supersoldiers drill their inhuman abilities through rigorously structured team battles constructed within lucid dreams, training cadets to slash and kill without consequence. To Erik, on a perpetual losing streak along with the rest of his team, the matches are nothing more than a stinging thorn in his side.To Erik, the heavy weight on his shoulders is both imperceptible and unbearable.(or: league of legends/inception inspired sci-fi with the nordics; training and battles; superpowers; a lot of love; a lot of pain; a lot of hope.)





	windows all closed

**Author's Note:**

> tw: blood, violence, death, and some disturbing imagery. feel free to skip as much as necessary
> 
> title from see you soon by coldplay! good listening for this fic :)  
wrote this for nanowrimo 2017... I know I haven't been back here for a looong time, and I haven't been writing for years. but here I am posting this, unpolished, riddled with flaws, right out of my brain from two years ago. recently reread this and I love it enough that I hope this dead fandom can get something out of it lmao. also no hate meant to any of the characters featured no matter what they do! I promise I love all of them TT  
you don't need to know anything about league of legends to get this, though the vocab can be a little confusing at first. all google-able though and hopefully it makes enough sense ? I use weird replacement words but you can imagine the "map" to be v similar to summoner's rift in LoL.  
let me know what you think!! I honestly love the nordics so dearly I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get over hetalia 100%. considering writing more ...  
please enjoy :)

Erik takes a deep calm breath as it all happens, because the worst thing is when they gut you clean. You’re seeing but not feeling your innards slide out, and in those seconds before your death you hear your heartbeat too loud in the dirt, and apart from drowning (which he has never experienced) it seems too terrible to be real every time.

Faintly the announcer’s voice is there for him. On a higher level, he cringes, maybe picturing his brother’s face when he hears the bodiless announcement of his death, but for now he focuses on closing his eyes and going over his item build. The two who ganked are faint shadows in his periphery as they leave, but it’s alright now. Deep breaths. His cooldown has already hiked up to 45 seconds post-mortem, as he’s already gotten killed four times too many. Perfect. The dirt under his cheek is wet and the sky above is purple-brown.

I don’t want to be here, he thinks, though it’s a little late.

Erik’s vision goes red-brown rust, and the moment he comes back the announcer’s voice rattles the very air, _ ENEMY DOUBLE KILL _—glancing down at his wristwatch shows a shot of two bodies, very clearly those of Matt and Beatrice, splayed into the ground like dirty clothes. The crooked set of Matt’s arm makes his stomach churn. Eyes darting out, Erik feels some twisted relief he’s in a solo lane, that he doesn’t have to deal with seeing or hearing it.

It’s a little juvenile, but he can barely summon up the will to care about this match, though forfeit here is impossible. Erik has better things to do _ in real life _than to go under and lose terribly to every team.

He heads back towards midlane and takes some more deep breaths. His wrist splints are itching, mud caking the knife on his side, and though on level he is perfectly collected, down in this muck Erik sees his dead team in the back of his head as if it’s really, well, real.

_ Wow, makes sense, even though it’s almost like this isn’t actually real. _

Lukas’s voice buzzes to life in his ear, though it sounds distinctly unalive. “Erik, enemy Bishop and Queen are ganking midlane again. Should I come engage.”

His brother says it like a statement, not a question. Erik can’t recall the last time Lukas really asked something like he meant it. He sounds mildly infuriated, as if someone is throwing rocks at him, though it’s impossible to blame him.

“No, I’m not risking dying again. I’ll stay under turret and it should be fine.”

Erik, for once, is keeping to himself and crouching by the midlane turret like he’s supposed to. The massive stone pillar is icy against his side, colder than winter back home, freezing even as the machine gun mounted on top swivels furiously like a dog shaking off water.

“They should be coming around. I’m watching, stay under there.”

Lukas pauses for a long, long while. Erik rolls his eyes.

“They’re pushing pretty hard, Erik, I think their Rook is coming too—I’ll call Mina off toplane.” He sighs like a bitter old man.

The commlink buzzes off and Erik palms his knife. Though the Fog is thick and black and he can’t see more than several feet ahead, the rustling of clothes is unmistakable. His nerves swell and inflame and he checks the map for any sign of them, wherever they may be, masked by the Fog and ready to pounce. Erik’s heart jitters, insectlike. The soft music he always sets on his headset during battles does nothing to still the crashing anxiety between his ribs.

He’s shifting in his awkward crouching position when it happens. One moment, he’s cracking his knuckles, back against the tower. For a fraction of the next moment he feels the three behind him, feels their pale, soft breathing all around him, and then they strike.

It seems harmless but the blood all rushes into his head and the murmuring on his commlink is drowned by his heart. Their Rook emerges first, maybe in an attempt to lure him into a false sense of security, but Erik has already taken off running before the other two come out.

“Chase!” a feminine voice yells, one that he recognizes from somewhere. _ Fuck! _ They all have helmets and masks the way they should on level, so he doesn’t know who the enemy team is, but the voice makes his subconscious quake with fear. Gunfire rings in his ears, once then twice.

_ Where in the hell is Lukas? Mina? Anyone? _

The three are chasing hard now, dodging the turret bullets as they gain on him, pushing him into the thick forest between lanes, and now Erik is ducking under branches as knives and bullets whistle past. _ I’m not going to feed. I’m not going to feed. Dear lord, I’m not going to die and let them loot me. _ He stumbles once, and that’s enough for the enemy Queen to snatch him by the elbow and thrust their hunting knife at his stomach. The Bishop and Rook are already firing and he feels a bullet run through his thigh.

Erik thanks every deity in existence through the pain for his mods, for those blessed reflexes, as he swings out of the way, narrowly missing the gleaming point of the blade. They’re shouting, something he’s still deaf to and something he doesn’t care about, and Erik is so consumed with relief that he’s not feeding it flushes out all of the anxiety.

And then he sees. There’s Mina’s silhouette speeding into the fray, a King’s mask over her face, and before relief can completely crush him he spots both Lukas and the enemy King and Knight rushing into this clusterfuck. His stomach drops like a bowling ball. Lukas lunges past and is immediately shot down by two different people.

_ Jesus fuck, I want to die, this cannot be happening again. _

“Erik!” Mina shouts via comm. Her arms are black and purpled with bruises where she was presumably hit, and his head spins. Ready for battle my ass. Mina throws a hard punch and downs the Queen at last, but the King grapples her and slams a fist into her bloody face.

They’re dead already. They’re so, so, dead. Before he can really feel it, someone’s gunshot makes its way through Erik’s brains, so down he goes, and as he’s dying (again) he knows they’re done. His death cooldown will be at least sixty seconds of limbo, sixty seconds the enemy team will use to cross the board, destroy the Nexus, and win the game. Mina and Lukas will probably stay dead for even longer, and only Matt and Beatrice are no match for five people who took out more than half of their team in thirty seconds.

Limbo rushes in, waves lapping against the shore, infinite thoughts rushing his mind like the beginning of a dream, confusing and strange and nonsensical. Erik just wants to sleep.

He’s so tired.

He jerks awake on level with his fingers so cold he can’t feel them, no longer caught in the dark mud down below but fully lucid, breathing heavy in the metal chair. Erik keeps his eyes closed and thinks firmly about eating a nice meal and sleeping in his warm bed and a dozen other peaceful little things, about things that don’t concern his losing streak or any of the other things going on. The tubes and IV are removed from his arms and head by a heavy-handed nurse.

When he opens his eyes, his vision swims with jet-black patches like fog. The buzz of the cold fluorescents sits in his ears. The others look like they’re still dead under that chilly light, clinical and unfeeling. Moving at all seems like a distant fantasy, his hands and feet completely asleep, and it’ll probably take another hour for the tranquilizer to wear off all the way for him.

Lukas sits across from him. His expression is flat and unforgiving like he’s the human equivalent of a cardboard box. Classically handsome and crisp-looking, as if rendered in 8k, Lukas stares right into his eyes. _ This is what the girls swoon over. A frozen dead fish. _ He looks asleep with his eyes open, and Erik resists the urge to laugh.

As the others come to, Matt starts blaring in his usual post-game fire alarm way, a tirade of “Good game, guys, keep it up, I think we’ll do even better next game! Remember, this is training,” all this other shit even though he’s a Knight and is in no way the team leader. Beatrice immediately gets up through enough tranqs in her bloodstream to kill a large dog in her haste to get away from the speech, and Erik can’t blame her at all.

(No, Erik somehow doesn’t hate his team, even though they’re his family. _ I fucking wish _.)

Mina cracks her neck in her chair and turns toward him smiling like the angel she is. “Erik, how’d things go? Was it okay for you?”

He takes a shallow breath in. “Uh. I let them loot me like crazy, again, for the sixth time in a row,” he says, and though his voice is calm it seethes bitterly underneath.

_ Calm the hell down, man. _

“It’s okay!” Mina says, smiling, even though it’s really not, even though they’re at the bottom of the roster right now and Erik wouldn’t be surprised if one of the generals demoted the five of them sometime soon.

“After all,” she says, “we still have our mods, so there’s really nothing the higher-ups can do.” There’s a meaningful pause here where he’s supposed to gasp and see the errors of his ways. Lukas is still dead-eyeing him in the periphery. Mina just ruffles his hair like they’re kids again. “Cheer up, Erik. I promise we’ll get better.”

Erik just nods along like their team is on the road to improvement. “I guess.”

The other team has started making their way out. Glancing over the partition, Erik glimpses the owner of the voice that terrified him so much back down there on the Board; it’s none other than Elizabeth Hedervary, quite possibly the best Queen in the academy, and she smiles genuinely at his brother and offers a handshake. Erik craves death.

“Excellent warding, Lukas, that team maneuver was spectacular,” she says, smile on her face and still shaking Lukas’s hand. _ Is she talking about the one time Lukas and Beatrice almost ganked? _Matt stares wide-eyed in the back throughout the entire interaction without saying a single word.

Lukas nods blankly. “Thanks. Good game.”

And just like that, the conversation is over, and she follows the rest of her team with a wave in their general direction. The four of them (sans Beatrice, who got out when she should have) sit frozen in their chairs, in their awkward silences. Deep breaths. The scene feels strange and off-level and it’s like Erik’s back on the board, face in the dirt and dying, breathing shallow. Things are okay. The air around them is frigid and smells like antiseptic and rubbing alcohol.

Lukas abruptly speaks. “I think she broke my finger.” Immediately the spell breaks and Matt and Mina crowd in, chattering like teenage girls as they examine his hand, and the sweet smile on Elizabeth’s face flickers back across Erik’s mind, the derision and scorn he missed now rising to the top. He’s possessed with a sudden urge to burst into tears at the thought.

_ She was just being nasty, she has a hand mod, it’s alright, _ he thinks, though it kind of isn’t. The joint of Lukas’s pointer finger is starting to swell an ugly maroon.

For some reason Erik can’t summon up the will to care about it anymore, and he lets himself mentally check out of this place. He can’t say he doesn’t despise it with his whole being. Was this probably the worst possible place to grow up? (Yes.) Sometimes it honestly astounds him how people are so cutthroat here they’ll pick on fucking Lukas. This is the latest incident among dozens. Lukas, his older brother, a member of quite possibly the worst team to ever grace the West Point Military Institution, someone whose mod is literally _ being intelligent _, someone who everyone agrees they would fuck with because he’s a “cool guy”. What about that screams “target” to every single cadet here? Erik doesn’t know and he doesn’t fucking care. Sometimes he really regrets his younger self’s (frankly stupid) decision to go chasing after his brother to train for Special Forces Unit Thing. Matt is twisting the finger around now and doing all kinds of dumb shit, and Lukas still doesn’t move a muscle no matter how much it must hurt. Christ.

_ Did I ever stop regretting it? _ Erik sighs and stands up. The answer, once more, is no.

“I’m going back to the dorm to sleep. Have a good time.”

Matt’s face twists comically, just like Lukas’s finger. “Hey, Erik, don’t you want something to eat? Beatrice said she’d meet us in the mess hall, you know, and you don’t want to let Beatrice down, do you?” He stumbles to his feet charged with the fire of a thousand batteries. Sometimes Erik wonders why they are on the same team and why administration thought giving Matt a _ metabolism _ mod was ever a good idea.

“Yes,” Erik says, feeling as deadpan as Lukas. “I don’t want to let Beatrice down. Now can you please move and let me go back to my room. I’ve been humiliated enough for one day.”

Matt is stupid and Mina and Lukas are too entertained to interfere. In as short a span as five minutes, Erik is paraded over to the mess hall as everyone watches the losing team’s procession, awkwardly inserted between Matt and Beatrice as they argue, and given a miniscule tube of electrolyte booster and a cup of water-flavored jelly to satiate his appetite.

What a meal. How is he ever going to eat after this one?

“I just don’t understand your problem, Bea, and you honestly need to shut your fucking mouth. Like, now.” Matt literally sounds like he’s yelling through a megaphone at her, though his tone is jaunty and normal like it always is. Erik wants to screech right back into his ear, maybe in an attempt to stop the impending catfight, maybe because he’s so frustrated he craves death’s sweet embrace for real on level. The entire mess hall is already listening in on their petty argument like they’re incompetent private investigators.

Yes, Matt and Beatrice say they’re the best of friends all the time, and yet this happens every single day. What the fuck. 

Beatrice is probably the most awkward, stiff person Erik has ever met, yet she leans closer across him—her scowl is _ blinding _ in its ferocity, a look that would probably make anyone else piss their pants. Though her hair is long and blonde and her dress goes past her knees, her towering height ( _ while sitting _) and the glint of her glasses speak enough, and she doesn’t even need to open her mouth to send a perfectly clear message.

Mina’s head is swiveling back and forth even though this stupid drama happens every day. Lukas eats his jelly with a fork and looks dead to the world. But Matt, being _ literally stupid _ , doesn’t take this cue and continues to talk. _ Is he fucking stupid? Oh, wait. _

“You’re being an unreasonable bitch, honestly, don’t give me the death glare. You know it doesn’t work, and you know I’m right. Try me, just fucking try—”

For the hundredth time that day, Erik thanks God for his mods. He swings all the way back a mere moment before Beatrice’s arm shoots out like a fucking _ bullet _, nailing Matt in the face mid-sentence, and there’s blood and it’s dramatic and honestly a little stupid. An audible gasp rises up. Matt grins all maniacal through the blood on his face, as if he thinks people actually care about whether he got punched in the face or not.

All eyes are on them and the guards are whispering amongst themselves. If they come over here they’ll all get their asses kicked by admin and everyone else for the rest of their lives, just like last time and the time before. Jesus, Erik wants to die, and he’s sick of this place and everyone in it snapping their necks when they turn around to stare at you, and he’s tired of losing losing losing. _ Have I mentioned that yet? _ It’s true. Erik’s exhausted and he kind of wants to pop like a fucking balloon and cry. No amount of internal snark, funny as it may be, compensates for how miserable he’s been these last few weeks, or how sick he is of people snapping his brother’s fingers or getting gutted on the Board three consecutive times or any of it, any of it happening to him.

_ I am miserable as fuck, Jesus Christ. I am a miserable, edgy motherfucker. _

Lukas sighs as if these idiots are all beneath him (which they are, to be honest) and gets up to leave. Mina just sits pretty and pats Beatrice’s fist like a doting spouse (which is not far from the truth, to be honest) and in seconds the mess hall is back to its normal self.

(Which isn’t so bad but isn’t so good. To be honest. Erik still cannot believe they are genetic modification test subjects in a military base of the United States who ooh and aah like kindergarteners over dumb shit.)

“Hey.” Lukas holds out his not-swollen hand (which Erik doesn’t take, but it’s the gesture that counts) and he scrambles out of his seat like he’s five and ready to follow him anywhere. The mess hall is lively and glowing and the cold light spills into the dark hallway, silhouetting the both of them into pale shadows against the cement floors.

He sighs for a long time as they walk. Erik thinks about ranks and teams and the Board and how he hates Bishop as a position and water-flavored jelly as a substitute for real food. What the hell is real food, though? What else does he expect? This is the day to day, this miserable defeat and stupid fights and petty drama in a place where they’re supposed to be elites, the government’s pet project or whatever, and Erik no longer remembers what his mom looks like. It takes time to recall his birthday now and it takes time to recall the date.

Something is wrong here, though he can’t put his finger on what it is, but something is wrong. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s his brother. Maybe there’s new administration. Maybe he hasn’t been training right. Maybe something else is afoot. (But is it really? How does he know it’s not his fault, that it’s okay for his team to carry him in fights like he’s a newborn?) Maybe the wrong thing is the stagnancy and uselessness that is pervasive in his life right now. Today has not been amazing and he wants to cry again.

To be fair; Erik hasn’t thought about these things for a very long time and it makes him too upset for words to think rationally. _ Does _ he want to cry? _ Does _ he want to leave? The walk to the dorm has never felt this long in his life and Erik prays his brother won’t say shit. Thank God Lukas seems to sense his train of thought and doesn’t do his normal “I’m your older brother and I support you even though you’re immeasurably angsty and I have the emotional capability of a helicopter blade” speech.

Fuck this. Fuck this so much. Erik doesn’t care how edgy it sounds.

They walk with cold steps across the building in settled silence, quiet like silt at the bottom of a pond. The sheets in his bed are stiff. As usual, Lukas yawns like a cat when he gets into bed, a crooked side of him Erik only ever sees in this hour, and they go to sleep in their cramped bunks like they always do, in this room they’ve been in for years, and it’s all very vanilla and normal and bland. Except it isn’t.

“Erik,” Lukas says in his monosyllabic, watered-down way. “Erik, what’s going on?”

Here it is, the (delayed) speech about him and his inherent emo-ness and how it’s not his fault. _ If one more person tries to talk to me about this I will literally explode. Please no. _

“I thought we were sleeping, Lukas.”

“Hmm.” Lukas is rustling and shifting like Satan himself has possessed him, a pattern that’ll repeat every ten minutes or so until he falls asleep. For some reason this is one of the more normal additions to the extremely long list of strange habits Erik’s brother has garnered. “I didn’t think so.”

“Well, we are.”_ Please leave me alone. Jesus, please. _

“It’s not your fault, and you can’t blame yourself. Our team has good mods and admin is just matching us up out of our comfort zone.” _ We also have good lack of skill. _ Growth is good, Erik, we’re not even that bad, et cetera et cetera. Tears are already making themselves known in his eyes _ . _It’s all true, but it’s really not sometimes, just like the rest of the things in his life right now. Is Erik being edgy? Is he being truthful? Can he even discern the two anymore without combusting?

(It hasn’t happened yet, but if things keep going like this, well. He wouldn’t be surprised.)

“Bishop isn’t even that pivotal, and I know it’s not my fault we’re failing,” Emil says now, breathing slow.

“Hmm.” What a catchphrase.

Fuck breathing slow. Erik sets himself on the tangent path and leans over the edge of his bunk to stare down at Lukas while he goes _ off _. “You know it’s true, though. King goes toplane where kills happen. Rook and Knight go botlane where teamfights happen. You don’t even have a specific lane as Queen and yet you’re still where the action is because you roam through all three lanes and forest. Bishop, however, goes midlane where nothing happens, and he has no experience to speak of, so actually improving and scoring kills and not dying is kind of impossible and he’s really struggling.”

He sucks in a nice lungful of air but can’t find the words to continue. Lukas doesn’t try to refute or even acknowledge him, instead closing his eyes for a minute or two. They are both silent. Erik’s still leaning out of his bunk and his neck is starting to get a crick. Part of him hopes Lukas is asleep, and part of him hopes Lukas will ardently express how much he agrees.

After a long, long moment, the kind of moment where someone could have frozen time and you’d never know, Lukas snaps his eyes open to stare straight up. The gesture is familiar and yet it still scares the shit out of him every time. Lukas looks a little off in the deep darkness of their room, face illuminated only by the glow of the light from the little window up near the ceiling, his eyes ghostly and his hair blue-blond like some icy apparition that happens to be in the bed under Erik’s.

He also looks, strangely, more alive than he has all day.

Erik clears his throat in what is possibly the most awkward manner ever. “What.”

A small smile flits up on Lukas’s face, a rare off-center smirk that bleeds an innate and natural charm, the kind of smile that floods Erik’s every molecule with both jealousy and awe.

“Nothing.” He pauses, scratches his jaw, looks to the side. Holds up his still-purple finger. “I’ll talk to Bea about it, don’t worry. Just go to bed. Don’t worry about that anymore.”

Erik can’t answer to that without crying and so responds with a fake-indignant “_ Beatrice _?” instead.

Lukas laughs. The night really does change people immeasurably. Who knows, maybe he’ll start barking like a dog soon. “Don’t act so surprised. The three of us have always been friends, since the very beginning.”

“Hmm,” Erik deadpans. “Friends. Didn’t know you and ‘Bea’ and that fucking loser were friends at _ all _.”

“He’s not that much of a loser, Erik. Don’t be a child.”

“He’s a loser. And don’t try to lecture me about childishness when we’re talking about Matt.”

Lukas sighs and rolls over. “At least I have friends. Matt’s annoying sometimes, I guess. But he’s not all bad. Even Bea thinks so, and she always acts like she hates him. But we’d be done for without him.” A long-suffering pause, one Erik doesn’t blame him for. “And come on. You know how it is with us.”

Erik lasts about six seconds of silence before he can’t help it and the words come out amid barely restrained laughter. “Did you just confess your love?”

Lukas stares up at him with his trademark dead-eyed look, stares so long Erik’s eyes start watering like he’s going to cry for real. “So what if I did.”

If Erik could scream right now, he would, and that’s that.

Lukas sighs. “Go to sleep. I’m serious.”

“Or what? You’ll spank me?”

Lukas immediately rolls over and tucks the blanket in up to his eyes. Erik doubts he’ll be sleeping any time soon and plans to while away the rest of his night staring up at the concrete mere inches away from his nose, lying there in the almost-dark of their shared room, listening to Lukas’s weird flailing and listening to his own breathing. In, out, in, out.

Who knows, he’s tired. He was tired earlier and he’s been tired all day. Maybe he’ll be falling asleep sooner than expected. _ I’ll talk to Bea about it, don’t worry _. So he tries not to, and he tries to sleep on it, because that’s what Lukas says. It’s true. And somewhere deep in there, Erik loves his older brother as much as he can, even though he has the expressiveness of an inanimate object and the way people treat him upsets Erik beyond anything. That’s just the way it is. That’s that.

Sleep for him is full and deep, the kind of sleep you have immediately after a good meal. He doesn’t go off level and dream, or fidget like Lukas, or anything like it. It’s seamless, satin smooth. Erik can’t remember the last time he slept this well.

Which is partially why he wants to die twice as much the moment artificial light floods the room and the loudspeakers declare all trainees need to take their protein supplements and iron boosters in the mess hall with their meal today, the speaker’s voice loud and crunchy in his ears. Lukas is huddled into a sad-looking pile of bunched up sheets with his eyes open.

“You can go without me,” he says, seemingly wide awake. He probably is. What a man.

“Huh,” Erik says, like he wasn’t even thinking of waiting for Lukas anyways, even though he obviously was, because that’s the way he always is every morning, but of course Lukas pays it no mind and shoos him away with a wave of his hand.

Walking to the mess hall by himself after showering and dressing is an experience. Sometimes Erik forgets his one close friend is also his one family member, that unlike the others here he has no real connection to someone else or to those on his team. Sure, Mina’s an angel, and Beatrice has a keen personality under the awkwardness and the resting bitch face. Matt is questionable but also better than having no one. But those are all his brother’s friends, his by association only, and he has never had a serious non-training conversation with any of them in his life. Erik won’t lie and claim he doesn’t want an attempt at friendship. He also won’t lie and claim he’s capable of that.

The mess hall isn’t overflowing like always, thank God. There are a couple people he knows by sight only, but the team is nowhere to be seen. Well, too bad, but not really. The distributor seems like he's in an especially good mood today judging by his flattened-out demeanor and lack of tray-slamming. Erik gets his batch of supplements and boosters and his daily allowance of two shakes, sits down at an empty table, and enjoys the Matt-free silence.

_ I don't care what Lukas says, he's a loser and that's the end of it. Sorry, not sorry. _

Things are normal, and the pain of losing from yesterday hasn't carried over so much. Erik focuses on the taste of iron drops on his tongue, the taste of licking a wound, the sensation of something cold going down his throat, the feeling of the plastic table beneath his hands and the concrete beneath his feet, all of them safe and grounding. That's me, feeling more at home with inanimate objects and sensations than actual people. That and being a little shit. It's nice. Things are leisurely, the way they always are after going off level (this is probably the one thing Erik absolutely loves about dropping off, the amazing internal peace you always feel after it. Yes, it's mostly because your subconscious literally died several times and probably developed some traumas, but it's all worth that blissed out as close to being high here as you can get feeling.)

The more awake he gets, the calmer things are, and Erik barely thinks about having to deal with Elizabeth and Matt and training as he floats right out of there. Maybe he'll just go to sleep again; after all, no one will blame him after yesterday. Sounds like a plan. His maybe-warm sheets are still back in their dorm. It'll be great. The path back to his dorm seems so much shorter than it was yesterday as he passes clumps of people nice and fast, steps quickening. A lazy day in it is.

No, it isn't. 

When has it ever been? Erik would love to know. He opens the door anticipating an empty dorm room and a warm bed, and who the fuck else is there to see but Matt (of course), in their dorm, leaning against their bedpost, chattering at Lukas at approximately the speed of light. Lukas sits there unmoving still in his sleeping clothes like this is all very interesting to listen to. Neither of them so much as breathe in his direction.

"So they were like that, right?" Matt holds his hands a few inches apart from each other. "I swear, I was gonna scream, and they still didn't see me. I got the fuck out of there though. Both of them would have killed me if they knew, it was wild, but I think it's fine now. Hopefully."

_ You're not the only one about to scream here _. Wasn't Erik just thinking about how calm he was?

"It was a great time though, makes for a great story, you feel me? Well, I mean, it's not like I'll be going around and telling people--" He laughs sheepishly, the way someone actually embarrassed about blabbering would be. "You know what I mean. Anyways. Shouldn't you be going to get your stuff now? I was thinking about going to the weight room today, actually. You should come! Yeah! I mean, go do your thing first, but I did get up early for you, so. No pressure though, huh?"

How is it possible for someone to not breathe through a monologue like that? How is it possible for his hair to stick up like that? Matt is truly a man of unanswered questions.

Matt leans over to Lukas and sticks out a hand, fond and easy. It's a nice gesture and he laughs to go with it. "Come on, you're wasting time. Seriously!"

Lukas yawns in his weird way and doesn't respond. Part of Erik wants to loudly clear his throat and part of him feels like the invader, like he's seeing something he shouldn't be, spying on his parents or rifling through someone's bathroom drawers.

"_ Lukas _." Matt leans closer, swinging from the bedpost like it's a lamppost and he's an old movie star.

"Hey, Erik," is Lukas's response. Matt jumps and snaps around, caught in the act of something, and Lukas laughs the same way he did last night, carefree, easy. He’s still in the exact same place, wearing the thinnest clothes known to man and yet perfectly comfortable. Matt is still gaping and Erik interjects before he can go on a tangent on how stealthy he is or whatever.

"You're all kind of fucking ridiculous.” No one argues.

Lukas does what he needs to and swallows his boosters dry with a side of talking from Matt ("Every single time I do that, I get heartburn all day. I can't believe you were serious. How the hell do you do it?") and Erik tolerates/accepts/is okay with their familiar chatting, Lukas dropping in some snide bitchy remarks every so often amongst Matt’s speeches the way people normally nod during conversations. (“She reminds me of a loser sometimes, honestly. Like us but worse.”)

_ Where do I even start with you. What in the fuck. What happened to “don’t worry, it’s not your fault”? This is literally stupid. _

Lukas smiles all wry with a wave of his fucked-up Elizabeth-twisted hand. “Yeah, it’s stupid. Cool it with the scowl, Erik, let’s go. I’ll just watch and play chess or something.”

Matt’s eyebrows leap and probably execute a couple tricks on the way. “What? What’s stupid? What— where— _ Lukas _, what’re you talking about?”

Yes, things have been all right this morning, even with the annoyingness and the boosters swallowed dry and lack of sleeping in his warm bed when he should be. Erik can’t wait for things to be ruined. Right now, though, he’s content, a good night’s sleep has done him well, and even the side-eyes from the other teams who have probably won over twenty percent of their matches are mild. Matt trails along behind Lukas when they go like a lost child, quart bottle of metabolism booster in hand.

Things are good indeed. Erik is going to lift some weights though he’s bad at it, do some running though he’s bad at it, work his reflexes because they’re the one thing he’s good at because he was literally genetically modified to have them._ What a life. You’re living it, man. _

Honestly. He’s killing it.

The training room is similarly deserted, and Erik briefly entertains the notion that there’s some kind of event everyone is at where only the people who haven’t lost every match except one all season are at. (His hypothesis hasn’t been disproved yet; the two people there, Michelle something and some youngish kid he doesn’t know, haven’t won so many matches either). Matt immediately heads over to do the one thing he’s good at, taking elephant-size sips of booster between sets of deadlifts. _ That’s some real fighting potential there. _

Erik, on the other hand, has been stretching for a solid ten minutes. This is probably the one thing he’s good at without the mods. Utilize your strengths, everyone says, so Erik supposes he’ll just stretch and dodge his way out of combat training and matches. Lukas is doing his usual warm up of shitty stretching paired with three chess games at a time.

It’s a little weird and yet Emil still doesn’t fully understand the nature of his brother’s mods. His own mods were embryonic and mostly concern rewiring synapses, a (mildly unsuccessful) attempt to make reflexes the forefront of his brain. (That may or may not explain a lot of his life.) Lukas, however, is one weird little bitch— his inhuman levels of foresight and judgement were added post-birth, unlike everyone in this academy. There’s no real reason to give him brain mods when placed in a combat situation, either. To be frank the whole thing makes as much sense as Mina, who (although sweet) collects rocks for the sole purpose of naming them weird shit.

Some fucked up things are probably going on with both of them. Erik has never gotten up the guts to ask about any of it. He just hopes Lukas doesn’t talk to him or he’ll spill everything faster than Matt after coffee mixed with booster.

“I thought you were going to train, Erik,” Lukas drones, his hands moving seemingly independent of his brain as they move back and forth across the board. It looks like pieces will start flying if he doesn’t slow down, but of course they don’t (they never do) and Lukas just turns all smug in his direction.

Erik clamps his mouth shut and switches from left to right front splits.

“Come on,” Lukas continues, rather like a doting mother coaxing her child, “you can’t stretch all day then get angry when we lose.”

_ I feel so personally attacked right now, oh my god. I’m not here for this. _ “I don’t get angry when we lose.”

Lukas just dead-eyes him and turns back to his chessboards. His butterfly stretch is absolutely atrocious, Erik thinks, and his knees hover in a very uncomfortable fashion six inches off the floor. Fucking terrible. Do you see Erik stretching like that?

(No. The answer is no.)

Erik wants to die, but fine, he’ll listen to Lukas, because he’s right as always and Erik cannot possibly expect to win any matches if he doesn’t work on his trades and his sparring and things that are actually relevant to fighting. So knifework it is.

The knife area is completely deserted just like the rest of the building, though that’s not too far away from the norm; unlike too many people here, Erik is in no way interested in guns. In theory they’d work great with his mods (this being the main reason Mina will cite every time she tries to convince him to work on his shotgun skills) but as a midlane Bishop with a reflex mod, there is absolutely no reason to have a gun if you’ll be instinctively shooting it every single time you hear a noise. (This is also probably the reason Matt sucks in the position of Knight, because the role is central on _ long distance attacks with guns _ and he has the attention span of a fucking rodent. How the hell does Beatrice put up with having to duolane with him? She probably doesn’t.) 

Erik is mostly caught up in close-range melee fights going midlane anyways. If he needs long range, he’ll item build accordingly and pick up some explosives to throw or something. 

_ Perfect, sounds like a plan. Next time they push midlane too hard I’ll just run away and throw things. I am truly the most competent cadet in the entire institution. Mina who? I carry the team here. _

Erik won’t lie; the knife he always builds on in every match was chosen mostly for the aesthetic, though the feel of the blade itself is probably the important reason he should talk about when it comes to choice. The balance is nice, it’s easy to twirl, he likes the tacky feel of the handle and the navy blue nanopaint rimming the blunt edge, and it’s an easy blade to use.

It’s an easy knife, so of course he misses half of his attacks and blocks with the AI bot on easy. _ I’m living life right now. I am living life and life is living me. _ Yes, to be frank, he has been slacking, and it has been showing in their team’s performance a lot. The bot flings a steel arm at him and he immediately swings himself away into another one. Perfect, another bruise. Situational awareness, exclaims his internal older brother, awareness is everything! Look around you! Leave the moment behind, see the battle from the proverbial hill and not from down in the mud and dirt.

Erik tilts out, jamming his knife into the bot’s gut pressure point. The machine swings, stumbles blind in a convincing imitation, and Erik takes his chances, swinging his knife hand through into the pulsing point in the bot’s blank face. It whirrs like it’s breathing a dying breath.

Which it is. The bot collapses into the floor panel it came out of, folding like clothes. Erik is victorious even though it’s stupid. _ Fuck yes. Leaving the moment behind. Fuck this, I don’t even care if the bot was on an easy setting, I’m out. Bye, bitches. I have seen everything. _

“Did you just say ‘bye, bitches’ aloud?”

Erik jerks his head around like he’s another fucking cadet or something. “Wh— excuse me?”

It’s not Lukas, or Matt, or anyone he knows, for that matter. (Which, in retrospect, is weird as hell, since there are never new people at West Point.) The person in question is a short Asian guy in a shockingly _ red _ shirt, amber eyes like a cat’s. His hair is a little unkempt and parts unevenly.

He laughs and it’s so stupid. “You did. I love this. I love this so much, you have no idea.”

Like always, Erik can’t pull up an excuse or comeback from his lengthy list in his head when he most needs that shit, so he settles on squinting even more than he already is. _ Perfect, really gets the message across. Where the hell is Lukas? _

Lukas is too busy running the simulator and sending smug glances his way to comfortably swoop in and intercept. Matt is also busy, jock that he is, and any kind of interference on his part only ever ends in disaster and several private matters being disclosed anyway. How does he do these things when Erik has never told him a secret in his life? So many questions, so little answers.

It’s so fucking awkward. Erik finds himself standing to the side while the guy suits up and powers on the bot, and he can’t exactly keep standing there because it’s creepy, but if he just turns around and leaves he’s giving up and that’s the one thing Erik’s not doing in petty social situations.

“Who _ are _ you, anyway?” Deflecting the blame for the awkwardness onto the other person even though Erik knows it’s totally his fault, wonderful. This is his real strength, honestly, and if he could use it well in matches he’d die happy.

The mystery guy smirks, picks out a knife that Erik is very mediocre at building with. That’s saying _ something _about this guy (and himself if he’s being honest here). 

“Yeah, see, I’m new here. My team and I transferred in from another facility.” He sticks the knife back into its slot to deactivate the bot and turns to Erik. “Before you ask, I have no idea why, I have no defining talents and don’t want to start a fight, and yes that girl is on my team but no I won’t talk to her for you.” Erik follows his eyes to the girl in the sparring area with dark thick waves of hair gathered into a ponytail. Yes, she’s very pretty or whatever. No, he will not even exhale near her after seeing her ability to punch dents into titanium.

“Oh my god,” he breathes, more out of awe than shock. Everyone loves to go after the strength mods as vanilla and boring, but if that girl wanted to, he doesn’t doubt her ability to throw the fuck down. He thanks god she’s way out of their tier and they’ll never have to match on the Board. “That your King?”

The guy laughs. “Yep, that’s how everyone acts. Kitty can break people’s noses with a flick. I have no idea why people love her so much, to be honest.”

“She’s a badass. You guys will tier like crazy here.” _ Go Erik, interacting with others while sounding a little bit like a loser. Can’t take it back now, can we? Why are you like this. _

Another laugh. “Huh. Somehow I don’t know about that.”

The one new person who isn’t actually a little shit is talking to him like they’re friends, though Erik can already sense the fuckup coming right up. Please, if the conversation starts getting awkward as fuck Erik will crave death like never before, amen. The pause between them is growing much too fast for his own liking.

Red Shirt brushes his bangs out of his eyes all dramatic and sly. “Anyways, your name is?”

“Okay, really though._ Who are you _?”

His smile is bursting with restrained laughter. _ What the hell is so funny. Would someone like to explain it to me, please. I asked a question and I damn well deserve an answer. _

“Leon,” says Leon. “My name is Leon, like Leon Trotsky. Answer my question.”

“Huh.” Erik doesn’t answer, mostly because this is the closest to petty he can get without being straight out rude, and somehow he feels like “Kitty” punching him in the face wouldn’t be such a great ending to this. Leon doesn’t scowl, only raising his eyebrows much too expectantly.

Fine. He caves. Erik admits defeat. “Erik. E R I K.”

“That’s some edgy Viking stuff right there.”

_ It’s so fucking great whenever I say some of this shit, I feel like a legend, but hearing it come out of someone else’s mouth honestly lowers my lifespan by a couple years. _“That’s some edgy Communist stuff right there.”

Erik swallows and suddenly there’s a very real _ churning _ deep in his gut, the kind of churning that comes up mid-match whenever he’s being chased, or when physical inspections happen, and he very distinctly wants to crawl away and die. Yes, this somehow happens sooner or later with every single social interaction. Thanks, Erik’s subconscious. He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries not to die. _ I hate this. That was a stupid thing to say. Why the fuck? I love having anxiety. No I don’t. Time to make some dumbass excuse and remove myself from the situation, thus distancing me from everyone and not letting me make friends. _

“Hey, you good?” Leon raises his eyebrows, something troubled crossing his face, and then he shifts into a wide smile and takes a deep breath in. Are those the only two things this kid can do, raise his eyebrows and laugh? Who are these people? Where is West Point finding them?

Snark aside, it’s like someone slapped him in the face; suddenly Erik is beautifully calm and settled, probably the most he’s ever been in his life. The eyebrow raising and laughing and hair touching is allll paying off; the clarity is crisper than Lukas’s facial features. _ What the fuck, Erik. _ “What the fuck, Leon?”

He just laughs for the sixteenth fucking time and Erik isn’t even angry anymore, he’s just _ shook _. “Seriously, I need you to stop. Why are you like this?”

Leon shakes his head like a big dog, bangs brushing in his eyes (where and how the hell did he get that haircut? Can someone explain). He looks so damn overjoyed about being a pain in the ass Erik has to struggle against his internal need to beat the shit out of him. _ I came here expecting to make a new friend and it turns out he’s a little shit like the rest of them. _

“Whew,” says Leon, still two seconds away from bursting into laughter. “Whew. I have a pheromone mod, which is a little fucking useless, but at least I can give strangers anxiety. Whew. Sorry about that, kind of. You good now?”

_ Don’t be frank and say something asshole-ish, Erik. _ “What kind of position needs an extra hormone shot?”

Oops.

“Okay, first of all,” Leon says, and he holds up a sassy finger like he’s about to tell Erik to go to his room. “Pheromones and hormones are not the same thing. Secondly, Bishop is a fine position for my mods, don’t tell me to go Rook just because it’s a support role as I really am not strong enough to do it. Third, I’d love to—”

“Yes, you’d love to have a more competent mod,” Erik drawls, because _ me too _ , but he refrains from oversharing for now. He doesn’t doubt they’ll talk again; their combined snark could probably kill a man. What a dream team. And Leon’s a fellow Bishop, someone he could potentially face on the field (probably not, but he can dream) in midlane together. Mostly, though, wow, because this is probably the best talking to other people has ever gone, but of course all good things have to come to an end. In the corner of his vision, he spots Lukas’s face turned in their direction (of course his sneak of a sibling noticed). _ Shit _. Emergency alert, time to extract himself from this (surprisingly successful) situation before his brother and the rest of their team comes over here to run their mouths about him.

“I’m a Bishop too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to leave, so have a nice time training with a knife that’s suboptimal for a midlaner’s item build.” Erik spins very professionally to face the other direction and questions the meaning of his existence while he speedwalks over to Lukas. Thankfully, all he can hear is Leon’s weird ass laugh and the familiar clicks of the knife bot’s interface buttons. No footsteps in his direction or anything. _ Thank god he’s leaving me alone. I would die if he came over here. _

“Making friends? Good for you, Erik,” Lukas says, his tone half-serious half-humorous like he’s cooing over a baby. _ Aww, little Erik’s going out into the world! Fuck you too. _ The chessboard displays show Lukas has somehow made it through 37 games on three boards simultaneously. (Erik doesn’t even know how to play. He and his brother are clearly on different levels here.)

“Can we go now? Mina said she’d talk to me about positions and pushing lane, and I don’t want to be late.” This is one hundred percent a lie. 

“Matt’s not done.”

“Too bad. He’s never done.” This, unsurprisingly, is not a total lie.

“Who’s your new friend, Erik?”

Erik’s already halfway out of the room. “I’m going, bye. I don’t want Mina to yell at me for being late like she did last time.” This is also not a total lie. Mina looks disorderly, but if anyone is late to anything she will lose her shit. Mina’s mod probably scares Erik the most, seeing as her bones are _ unbreakable _ and her skin is _ impermeable _, and if she wanted to kill him she could literally swing her hand and shatter his skull with her titanium-strength bones. The only way to take her out is to bruise her until she hemorrhages or stab out her eyes or something. 

(Well, there’s a reason Mina’s King.)

So he goes off to his imaginary meeting with Mina when he doesn’t even know where she is and prays Lukas won’t follow along. (He doesn’t, because he’s waiting for Matt, because the two of them are friends.)

Maybe he _ will _ go and talk to Mina after all. She and Lukas carry the team so hard it’s a little scary, and she’s not bad company. Beatrice will probably be around too, and she’s equally amazing, so some advice from those two wouldn’t be all bad. Despite his crushing negativity towards everyone on their team, they’re all quite skilled in their own way. It’s a little painful to admit. Erik can kind of handle it. (Can he, though?)

He goes to the mess hall first, which is a little more full now, though Mina and Beatrice are nowhere to be seen. The library and commons are similarly void of the people he’s looking for. There’s literally nowhere else for them to be; are they dead? Asleep in the dorms? The hallways are cold and Erik misses Leon’s company a little, in his own weird way. He still can’t recall the last person he spoke to so easily to, the last person he really wanted to leave a good impression on, cringy as he is and as that sentiment is.

That’s human nature, though. Isn’t it? That desire to socialize with others, to share your thoughts and emotions with new people. At least it feels that way. Erik is safely an introvert, but speaking two words a day to Lukas is even more exhausting than talking to a shit ton of people for him. It’s natural and smooth to form connections with others. _ Now if only I could actually act on it. _ He won’t lie and say it’s just as natural and smooth to initiate things, but Erik can dream.

He really has nothing better to do on post-match days than to ruminate over these kinds of thoughts, as always, so he circles back to the mess hall, and who does he spot in the hallway directly outside the entrance? Beatrice and Mina. Of course.

Mina’s leaning against the wall, chattering idly about something in a way reminiscent of Matt but somehow much less irritating, and Beatrice stands awkward with her arms crossed and an unreadable expression on her face. It’s like endearment, but not. The same feelings of intrusiveness from earlier resurface and rear their head.

_ Should I go? Why was I even going to talk with them in the first place? _

“Hey, it’s Erik! How are things? What are you up to?” Mina’s voice is perky and shatters his frozen state.

Erik tries not to be awkward and fails. “Uh. Things are good.”

Beatrice nods in his direction, the action feeling both like a greeting and an acknowledgement of his anxiety. Yes, she is awkward. Yes, she can somehow read everyone like a flyer on the street. “Erik.”

“Hey.” He pauses and it’s awkward, this typical status quo that pervades his whole life, so Erik blurts out whatever the hell he can reach for. 

Mina starts: “Wh-”

“So I was talking to someone and Lukas was about to go all out and expose me to him so I said I had to talk strats and positions with you, and I felt like actually doing that since I don’t want to train and I would like to improve. Please don’t kill me you know how mortifying any situation involving Lukas can become. Sorry. Oh my god, sorry, just continue.” Is he a mess or a mess? _ I started out so optimistic for today, honestly, what happened? Where did everything go so badly? I’ll just stay in bed for the rest of the day. _

Mina laughs now, more laughing on a day where it feels like there shouldn’t be so much of it. “How far along is your relationship? Or friendship?”

_ First of all, bitch, we just met. _Erik refrains from saying this aloud mostly because it’s not her fault he’s snappy and also because she’d kill him. The mess hall swells with sound.

Beatrice huffs out a laugh. “Mina.”

“What?” she says, fake-indignant, back in their own little world again. Erik doesn’t mind so much this time, mostly because it’s nice to see just how happy the two of them get. “The more embarrassing Lukas is, the more serious things are. It’s scientifically proven. You can ask a supervisor. It’s probably one of his mods.”

“Explains a lot,” Beatrice mumbles, her hair in her face, and Mina grins back at her.

“Exactly. So, positioning and baiting?”

“I mean,” Erik says, and now it’s his turn to mumble, “I just need to get better. I don’t really know what to ask about.” And he thinks of going back down onto the Board again, matching against superior opponents like Leon and getting shoved out of his own lane, letting the enemy team feed off him like crazy, all of it. Does he ask about everything? Erik swallows the small remnants of any pride he had down and nods several times to accentuate this point. _ Jesus, I feel like a kid. An easily embarrassed, clumsy, archetypal child. Fuck it up, Erik. _

“Hmm,” says Mina. “I get that. I know you haven’t been so happy with our recent matches, especially because our opponents have always been so good.” Both are understatements of the year. “Has training done anything for you this season?”

Truthfully, no. “Kind of, I guess,” he says instead.

Beatrice the human lie detector raises her eyebrows and clears her throat. “So you think it’s a strategy problem.” Her voice pitches low.

“Yes. No. Maybe. I just don’t know,” he admits, _ I’m sorry I’m eating up your time like this _ being the main unsaid thing hovering above this conversation. “I don’t know how to stop. Sorry.”

Mina waves her hand away easily with a smile, like it’s all okay. “It’s fine! I think this is a good topic to think about. You’ve been mentally tilting all season because of how poorly we’re doing, and that’s a big thing affecting your performance on the board, which leads to more anxiety and worry. This negativity and losing streak affects the rest of the team. In fact, I’d be surprised if we place any higher by the end of the season.”

That entire monologue is said in an easy, happy tone, as if she’s referring not to his failure as a cadet but to her friendship with Beatrice or her rock collection. Beatrice herself glances to the side, clearly seeing the lack of tact there as well. Whatever, it’s fine, especially since it’s all true.

“Yeah,” he finally manages to push out.

Mina tilts her head back so it hits the wall. “Erik, do you want to take a break this season?”

The answer that comes out is pure instinct, and it may or may not reflect how he actually feels. 

“No, of course not, I—” 

Well, maybe. He stops himself before this train of thought goes any further. Beatrice opens her mouth to speak before seemingly thinking better and settling down again.

It’s weird as all hell. Mina looks so soft and gentle in this moment, her tousled hair messy and haloed around her face and shoulders, borderline angelic and rendered smooth and edgeless. It’s a little disturbing and a little inhuman just how rounded out she looks.

“You know, Erik, it’s okay to take a break, think about strategies and performance, spend your time training instead of tiering and matching. A break will be good for you, and the rest of the team too.” Her doe eyes glance down, then up, then at Beatrice (whose arms are crossed very defensively) and they maintain eye contact for much longer than necessary, as if hosting a deep telepathic conversation in the silence between them.

“I’m the King, you know,” she says after that lengthy pause, and something in her voice shifts then. “I can arrange it.”

_ I came here to improve and I am being told to quit. I appreciate you a lot, Mina, but what the fuck. _

Erik tries not to sound a little bit miserable and fails by a lot. “I guess.”

Something flickers over her expression, shadowing her eyes, and even though the chatter from the mess hall drowns any deeper thought in Erik’s head it distinctly feels like the three of them are isolated here, alone amongst all these people, a lonely and disturbing feeling in his stomach that radiates cold shivers through his hands and feet.

“It’s okay,” says Mina now, though her voice clearly says it’s not. Any niceness or peppy optimism from before is gone now, the softness around her more sad than pretty, and she tears her pale eyes from Beatrice’s to stare him in the eye. “I think it’s good to take a break every once in awhile. It’s okay.”

Beatrice glances over to him too now, a clear message in her eyes: _ Later _.

“Come on,” she says simply, and puts her hand on Mina’s back. Mina turns over her shoulder and smiles in a very sober way.

“Don’t worry. It’s okay. Nice talking to you!”

They’re gone before Erik can say _ You too _ or _ What was any of that supposed to mean _ or _ Why am I always so confused? Why are you leaving? _ From the back from far away, Beatrice’s hair is still what stands out the most, a long, pretty cascade of blonde that seems so contrary to the rest of her (in a good way). The shivers return, sinking deeper, and he has to restrain himself from physically twitching they’re so bad.

Is it anxiety or is it just Leon’s fault? It’s very obvious that whole conversation didn’t have anything to do with what he wanted it to be about, especially by the end. The look on Mina’s face when she pulled a Lukas stare on him was borderline disturbing. Who, what, when, where, why, too many questions in one day. Erik really does deserve the rest he’s been craving for most of his life. All the sleep in the world never seems to be enough to fix his utter exhaustion.

_ Back on the grind, back to your daily dose of edgy. What is Erik going to complain about next? _

He spots Elizabeth’s team approaching from the far end of the hallway, probably because it’s almost noon and this is a normal occurrence, yet some kind of twisted anger or annoyance flares uncomfortably up into his throat. _ Great, more people to bitch about _.

If he’s being realistic, Elizabeth and her team aren’t even that bad. Elizabeth (haughty and annoying as she is) probably didn’t mean to sprain Lukas’s finger, though she probably meant to make him want to die. Little does she know that’s literally impossible, because Lukas is a plank. _ She could have just gone for me. I already crave death. _ The rest of her team is nowhere near that and is comprised of probably the tamest, most normal people Erik has ever met, which is an especially impressive reach as no one here is remotely normal. How the hell did she ever end up with such nice people? He will never know.

They’re closer now, the annoyance is flaming in his head and it feels like if he opens his mouth he’s going to spit acid. _ They played better and they won and it’s not her fault she has a hand mod and she can’t help herself _ ** _calm down_ ** _ Erik, calm down. _ Because it doesn’t matter what her intention was, bad or good, whether she meant to use her vice grip, it only really matters that it already happened so it’s over and he needs to move on, right now, before he explodes in unadulterated emotion.

Wow! Erik loves having to live here for a couple more years.

He takes many more deep breaths than are necessary the closer they get. They’re chatting and walking like they got off tranqs, which is probably accurate, seeing as they match every single day. _ When someone’s competence fans your flames and grinds your gears. Oh, Erik. _

Enough is enough. He decides to go back to bed for real this time, turning around several seconds before they can cross paths, pushing down the layered anger then jealousy then a deep down kind of fear. He’s speedwalking over to the dorms and Erik prays no one is in there to disturb him or sidetrack him this time. His bed will no longer be warm, whatever, all of his thoughts are melting into one incoherent muddy color and for the umpteenth time he is very, very close to tears.

The hallways are too sharp and clear around him. It’s like Erik’s back on the Board, where his emotions are primal and fucked up and every single action boils down to fight, flight, freeze, every breath making his head hurt. _ I always seem to be this close to having a full-on mental breakdown and tantrum, but when was the last time that actually happened? _

It’s kind of reassuring, that it’ll never actually happen, that all the swelling will go down after tomorrow’s match when the tranquilizer hits. Emphasis on kind of.

But it’s fine because the dorm room is definitely empty and Erik’s _ so _ ready to sleep like a champion, so he climbs up into his rickety-ass bunk and closes his eyes. He does not sleep like a champion, at all, as predicted.

He channels his inner Lukas by flailing all throughout his early sleep cycle, dreaming fitful and strange. He’s talking to Beatrice, and then she ties up her hair for the first time ever, he’s pretty sure. She’s pretty in this strange way and her eyes look like jeweled polished amber. But Beatrice with a high ponytail is different somehow and the table beneath them hardens from a liquid pond into a thick wooden table. He knows this table from somewhere, definitely. It’s a comforting table. Beatrice is pretty indeed, though she isn’t in that way, and her hair swishes and now it’s Leon. The glittering amber eyes are still set into his face but the ponytail is dark and ruffled through now short and closer to his head and he’s wearing blue. This feels very strange.

They are still talking, and Erik has no idea what they are talking about.

“Do you? Think that, I mean.” Leon smiles sideways.

This is disturbing, it’s disturbing as fuck, it’s so disturbing as Leon glances off to the side and the table melts from stable and strong into a mirror reflecting his own face. Erik catches his normal reflection, the normal Erik with Lukas’s pale eyes and hair that looks icy in this light. It’s a little bit reassuring. The window behind him glows with a sweet pink-orange sunset light. I want to see the sunset, he thinks.

And then things change, he’s falling and Erik’s stomach barrel rolls and does a couple handsprings for good measure and he jerks awake in bed now, feeling like he jumped out of a window. The dorm is too dark and he can’t see a thing.

“Lukas?” His voice wobbles like a kid’s, like a spinning top about to fall.

No response. For the first time in years, though he’s been on the verge for a very long time, a tear runs from Erik’s right eye.

Some part of him is too afraid in this moment to look down. Another tear surges out, burning and hot against his face, everything aflame and _ burning _ like he’s crying fire and his throat is plugged with acid from all the venom he stopped himself from spitting at fucking Elizabeth, and he is so immensely alone right now it is unimaginable except it is because it’s happening right now. No snark or logic about how Lukas is probably eating will help him here.

The tears get worse. His pillow is wet and his sheets are cold and there is nothing there except a deep, empty hole where something important is supposed to be, and he thinks about that wooden table in the dream, solid under his hands, and he thinks about heartburn from taking boosters dry and being gutted and going back to sleep, so he does.

Sleep erases things. Erik’s already forgotten the dreaming and the crying and the acid in his mouth, and he won’t be remembering any of it by the time the loudspeaker wakes them all up again tomorrow morning.

The mess hall is much more crowded than yesterday morning, the line of people waiting for boosters stretching into the hall in a crooked hungry wave. Erik (tired and bloated as he feels) is somehow already seated with the rest of the team. Lukas’s passive-aggressive taunting probably has something to do with it, though he pulls it out all too rarely seeing as Erik has never actually been this tired in the morning before. _ That’s some fucked up shit, honestly. I am honestly the only person here who likes waking up. _ (If Erik is so edgy and he can get out of bed early, why can’t you? These are the real questions.)

Matt is sipping his booster daintily in a rather poor imitation of Beatrice, as it isn’t so dainty after all. Beatrice is naturally not a juvenile loser and turns the other way to Erik.

“Shut the fuck up, Matt.” (He isn’t even talking, for once.) Erik, sleep well?”

“I guess,” he says, and he really doesn’t remember a thing, though his eyes feel swollen and achy under his eyelids. “You?”

Beatrice nods and glances quick to Matt then Mina and back to the table in her weird embarrassed kind of way. “It was alright.”

What a conversation. She turns back to Matt, who is too busy pouting at Lukas to engage in anything else right now. Lukas just smirks his weird half-smirk that everyone swoons over, tilts back to swallow the last few drops of booster, swipes idly at his wristwatch while Matt very clearly tries to get his attention. He cranks up his frown, waves his hands back and forth, snaps way too much, says Lukas’s name over and over, and Erik finds himself sort of wishing Lukas would either respond or slap him. 

It’s stupid. It’s also everyday, like Matt and Beatrice’s fights in the mess hall, though that doesn’t stop Erik from hating it and tolerating it at the same time.

Matt has his fists in Lukas’s hair now like he’s five. Lukas continues to pretend he doesn’t notice anything (this is why he always seems fucking batshit crazy, because of Matt). Erik will not lie, because he’s getting increasingly desperate for a change of topic, so he snatches up the one subject Matt will talk about for hours at a time.

“Hey, uh, Matt, can you tell me about duo botlane?”

Matt does the classic cadet turn where his neck snaps over at a crispy right angle to ogle whatever’s going on, hands still pulling on Lukas’s hair (literally, what the fuck is this team) as a grin surfaces on his face. “Erik? Did you just— Did you just ask me about duo botlane with Beatrice? My oldest pal? My best friend? My ride or die? My favorite lane and position? My role as Knight? My—”

Beatrice scowls. “We’re best friends when? Who?”

Matt laughs (a bit nervously, to be honest) and flippantly waves his right hand as if clearing away her statement. His left hand is still digging into Lukas’s scalp. Lukas just takes another sip and scrolls through his watch feed. “I’m _ so _ glad you asked me, and I’m so glad you’re figuring out who the carrier of the team is. I got you covered, Erik, no need to worry. I can help you out with all of your worries on the Board, just learn from the best example of teamwork there is.”

_ Do I regret bringing this up? Am I just as annoyed as I was before I brought up duo botlane? Who knows. _

“I feel it, Erik,” mumbles Beatrice, turning to wave Mina over.

Matt doesn’t seem to hear or care. “Well, the current match setup on the Board involves our three lanes of battle surrounded by forest, which lovely Lukas here roams, and the lanes are managed by one person per team except for bottom lane! _ Right _ ?” He’s _ cooing _ , almost? Erik isn’t nine years old, he’s pretty sure he knows his lanes, but alright. _ Also, did he just call Lukas lovely? I question this man’s validity as a human being sometimes. _

“And the further you push your lane, the more turrets you destroy, the closer you get to enemy base!” chirps Mina, who is also way too enthusiastic about all of this. What happened to the melancholia from yesterday? No questions asked though, honestly, Erik doesn’t want to hear about it anymore. “I love reviewing beginner stuff. We need actual beginners to teach it to.”

“Yes,” says Beatrice, snapped out of her Matt scowl and snapped into her soft Mina-mode. “We do.”

“We need more Knights!” cries Matt sensationally. What the fuck several times. “Really, though! Erik, when’s the last time you heard someone other than me talk about the greatness of Knight as a position? Botlane Knight paired with a reliable Rook—” here he takes the hand in Lukas’s hair and claps Beatrice on the shoulder hard— “Well, they’re unstoppable.”

He sounds like an unnecessarily melodramatic, swooning prepubescent boy. Lukas rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Really, though, think about it,” Matt says. “Rook is usually taken by a sturdy and dependable cadet with more defensive mods and little offense, while Knight is solely occupied with attack. That’s our only flaw, really, that we’re not balanced enough without each other.” So humble, wow. Erik’s _ impressed _.

“I’m balanced just fine,” says Beatrice with a tensed eyebrow. “I have a stamina mod, which applies both offensively and defensively.”

Matt’s eyebrows in turn raise very close to his chaotic mess of a hairline. Beatrice glances at Mina’s smooth smile and then back at Matt with a sigh. “You know, whatever. Continue your amazing speech.”

The eyebrows go down and the grin reappears. “Thank you! Now, as I was saying, Bea and I are such an amazing pair because we complement each other’s mods and attack styles. Her stamina and my metabolism make botlane extremely energetic so it’s easy to tire out the enemy with constant attack trading and lane pushing, and duo botlane is best with two people who really benefit off each other in such a way. Of course, all of the other roles are important as well, but going duo bot really improves our synergy in combat and our strength as a team.”

It’s all very awe-inspiring and whatnot, and Erik really questions how any of this is supposed to be beneficial for him as a solo midlaner. The only person whose style he has to match is Lukas’s, but it’s not consistent because he roams and never stays in one lane, so that’s not really applicable at all. The enemy Bishop isn’t going to wait for his whole team to come and save his ass when they could just as well call their own more competent Queen to gank his ass and loot immediately in the same way Elizabeth did last match. And there it is, the big drawback, the fact that Erik is in a solo lane even though he’s so heavily reliant on his team.

See, Erik’s learning from his mistakes. Or at least he kind of is. He’s learning more and more every day that he’s useless on this team and they could definitely use the competent Bishop they deserve. His brother, the genius behind every single team maneuver, or Mina with her unbreakable bones and toplane domination, Beatrice and her tireless lane pushing. Even Matt is a skilled Knight in his own stupid way.

It’s his fault in the least conceited way. Because with every gank the enemy pulls on Erik, they gain more gold via looting. And more gold means stronger weapon builds and add-ons, which makes a stronger team. A naturally stronger team is naturally the winner, every single time, and his missteps affect the whole team as do everybody else’s, except they don’t feed themselves four times in a row.

Erik’s head spins, and so he stands up and mumbles out whatever excuse he can come up with in his eternal exhaustion. They’re all saying things to him and to each other and Erik cannot hear a single word. It’s edgy, and it’s stupid, and he feels so shitty it’s kind of funny. Negative mood swings swamp his life and it’s hilarious.

_ I hate this, I really do. _ His vision fogs dark and Erik has a rush of that sudden precise awareness that he dreamed about some of this last night. He can’t remember specifics, but he knows, the way you know you’ve said something wrong in a conversation. _ Failing even in my dreams, huh. God. _

This strange omniscience is deeply troubling, like deja vu, like a crooked face. 

He stands in the hall with the freezing concrete against his back and Erik wonders where things went wrong, wherever his life started going so downhill, because everyone can still chat and laugh and he can only think unnecessarily edgy thoughts and snark about everything and everything feels like those dreams he can’t remember anymore. It’s so fucking edgy. It’ll pass because it happens every so often and every time it passes so he should probably not cry in the hallway.

“Erik. C’mon.” Someone gently slaps at his face with burning-hot hands and part of him wants to scream in their face. “Open your eyes, come on. I have a thing for you. It’s all okay, let’s go now.”

Sure, it’s all amazing to be shit and unwanted. _ Stop being edgy! Oh my god. _

Erik opens his eyes and it’s Leon, wearing normal not-bright red clothes, hands shoved in his pockets staring with his cat eyes to the side like he’s watching for someone.

“What. What do you want?”

Leon’s eyes dart to the side before sliding back to Erik, and he smiles casually. “Let’s go. The hallway’s no place for this stuff, and I have something to show you.” 

And he immediately turns and starts in the direction of the dorms, not even looking back, as if knowing Erik will follow him no matter how sketchy the whole situation sounds. It’s kind of ridiculous. It’s also completely true and Erik is already at his heels before he’s fully aware of what his legs are doing. Depressive mood? Instantly fucking gone. What a life. Now he’s just peeved.

“So where exactly are you taking me?”

Leon glances off to the side and looks all coy and fake-innocent at the ceiling like he’s _ so _ embarrassed. “It’s completely not allowed, but we’re going for it anyway, and you’re the one friend I have here. Also, you looked like you were this close to combusting.” He holds his pointer finger and his thumb up. They’re touching.

Erik chooses to ignore that last statement. “So you managed to figure out how to smuggle something illegal into a military institution? Congratulations, I guess.” _ We’re friends? _

“I mean.” Leon cringes. “It’s not illegal.”

Sounds fake, but okay.

Leon clicks open a door near the beginning of the dormitory section and Erik prays it’s actually his dorm. The room is exactly the same as all the others and equally sparse, walls gray, bunks white, tiny window adjacent to the ceiling. Leon scrambles up to the top bunk and digs a hand under the mattress while Erik leans awkward against the door frame.

“Hey, can you shut that?” Leon smirks, reaches deeper. “Come up here when you’re done. I don’t want to be exposed by admin. But this is pretty cool, if I do say so myself.”

“That automatically makes it uncool.”

“I’m trying, okay?”

He laughs and Erik feels a smile rise airy up onto his face as he clicks the door shut and climbs up into the top bunk the way he always does, except this isn’t his room and his bed. Leon holds a sleek black rectangle the size of his finger, earbuds plugged into it, and suddenly Erik’s head hurts so badly it feels like someone has stabbed him through the temples.

“Is that—”

Leon frowns, _ is something wrong with my face, what? Why is he looking at me with that frown? _ “It’s an old music player. What? Gonna snitch on me?” He very visibly pushes down a laugh but Erik forgives him for trying.

_ An old music player _. Erik can’t explain why the sight and words disturb him so much, even worse than that weird dream flashback from before, but they do and he feels very sick in that moment.

Deep breaths. “It’s nothing. What are we listening to?”

Leon stares attentively at the display as he fiddles with the buttons. “There’s— wait a sec. Um. There’s only a couple songs on here. Long story on how I found it, but it’s nice music. Here.” He offers an earbud. Erik swallows down his nausea because if he stress-vomits in his only friend’s bunk there will be so much hell to pay and puts the earbud into his ear.

“Tell me if you feel really bad, I can always put this off. This was mostly because I didn’t want you to be dead inside,” Leon says plainly, and presses play.

Erik can’t even think about the depth of that statement much (he noticed? He paid attention? What the fuck) before the music starts and in that moment, with a soft instrumental lull beginning the song, something instrumental shifts in his mind. There is a realization there, a realization that shatters tension and anticipation he never even felt.

Erik has never heard music before this very moment.

In these miniscule moments, millions of thoughts stream past in one never ending flood through his mind, sweeping away the debris, and a terrible shadow surges within him. _ I have never heard something like this in my life. I knew what music was, but I never really _ knew _ , since I never fucking heard it. What else don’t I know? What the hell was music to me? _

_ How could I have never heard? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why is listening to this so disturbing? _

The singer’s voice is soft and feminine in his right ear. Her voice is beautiful, probably the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard or encountered in his life, and yet Erik still wants to fucking scream.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” she says and sings so smooth it hurts.

“Take these broken wings, and learn to fly,” and tears well in his eyes, dropping hard and thick as the sound changes from light to deeply sad and back to light. The guitar in the background is heartbreaking. What’s a guitar, really? Does he even know?

“Erik?” Leon’s frown reappears and intensifies.

_ No! I don’t! Oh my god. What the hell is a guitar! What the hell is wrong with me! Leon and I have one conversation and now I’m crying in his bunk! _

“I don’t know what a guitar looks like!” Erik blurts through the mess of his crying, his head hurts so bad right now, Leon probably wants to kill himself right now due to the annoying-ass bitch crying on his smuggled goods.

“Wait—”

_ “I’ve never heard music in my life _ . Oh my god, I have never heard music in my _ life _!” 

The earbud is still tight in his ear and the singer’s voice raises. Panic screeches through him loud and grating.

“Take these sunken eyes, and learn to see,” she says. “All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.”

_ Wow. I hate this, so much. I came here expecting to have a nice fun good time with my one friend and now I’m having a nice fun good mental breakdown slash tantrum. I’m literally screaming! What the fuck is wrong with me! What the fuck is wrong with this whole situation! I am way more upset than I need to be. Jesus Christ, Erik, you need some fucking help. You probably don’t remember hearing music because you’re too fucking deluded. _ Leon’s hands are burning hot on his shoulders now and Erik really wants to extend his tantrum _ right now _.

“Hey,” he says, his voice sticky and pliable. “Erik.”

“Something’s fucked up,” he responds, and suddenly he is extremely sober, and all the tears have dried up. Erik swivels his eyes to Leon, who miraculously keeps up and shifts stern.

Leon pauses the song and tilts his head a little to the side, eyes still locked with Erik’s.

“You mean you’ve never heard music in your life, and you never knew what it was.”

“I—” Erik swallows. _ Stay calm, you had your chance to throw a tantrum. _ “I knew, but only vaguely. If someone had asked me about it I would have been clueless.”

Leon frowns for real this time. It’s on a different level from the previous frowns, his eyebrows furrowed and deep with a cloudy look in his eyes, something stiff and almost scared in the set of his jaw. “And how long have you been here?”

“Here?” he says, even though he knows exactly what Leon is referring to.

“West Point.”

“I…” Erik stares at the sheets of the bed and really thinks for a fleeting moment, thinks without the distraction of Leon’s searing warmth blazing next to him or the slick plastic of the music player against the paleness of the sheets.

Because, really, how long has he been here? He thinks back to last season, when they were marginally better than they are now. He thinks to the season before that, when Mina really started to revv up her game sense and carry their team. The season before, Lukas and Matt had switched as Queen and Knight, and before that, and before and before and before. 

He can’t remember.

“Do you remember anything before West Point?” Leon’s voice has fully softened now, fragile like Erik’s going to combust. In reality, the tantrum mood has completely vanished and a large hole has replaced it, cold and void, and Erik can no longer bring up the energy to get all worked up.

“No, I don’t,” he says, because it’s true. He can’t remember his mother’s face because he never actually knew her. He somehow never realized he’s never been out of here, because he’s never thought about any of it, which is both so fucked up and so beyond his grasp he’s ready to die, right now, and maybe he’ll just sleep and never talk to anyone again and feign being sick until he’s literally dead. Part of him wants to engage in this isolating behavior very enthusiastically. Part of him wants to go to Lukas and the team and everyone and blab until admin shoots him dead.

Tough choice. Erik settles on clenching his fists into Leon’s sheets and taking some deep breaths.

Leon’s frown shifts, and he turns to stare off to the side.

“You should go get some rest, Erik.” A strange clairvoyance runs into each word, and he turns back to look at Erik. “Take a break. From matches, from West Point. We’ll talk sometime later.” His jawline is clear when he turns at an angle, handsome in a pared-down way, reminiscent of something Erik can’t put his finger on. Leon’s bangs nearly brush against his eyelashes when he leans to tuck the earbuds into his mattress.

He smiles in profile, settled and sweet. “C’mon. Go for it, Erik. You need some rest.” A pause, and Erik thinks about a lot of things in that cramped space, about how he wants to hear that song again, how he never wants this sugary feeling here to end, even as his stomach churns and he knows late at night he’ll wake up and realize something terrible and splintering.

It’s okay, but it’s not. Things have shifted a little to the side, like the whole world has started to tilt, dangerous, and he’s scared. Leon’s reassuring expression is grounding and yet at the same time something is very clearly different, like he’s withholding something. Unsurprisingly, Erik’s perfectly fine with that.

Leon holds the crook of his wrist, soothing and warm, eyes speaking a final message before he lets go. It’s alright. Erik climbs down from Leon’s bunk, walks back to his dorm, sits in his bed with static distant fear and a disturbing settling in his stomach; but he’s not so scared? 

_ Am I? _

_ I don’t want to think anymore right now. If I do this headache will probably fry me. _

_ I wish I was back in Leon’s room listening to that song. Could I ever hear it again? I wonder if I can sing it. I can’t remember the tune. _

“I can’t remember— the tune,” says Erik, and his voice sounds like someone else’s, raspy and jumpy, and he wonders if he will ever get out of bed again. The last match still haunts him, Mina’s words following his head.

_ “I’m the King, you know. I can arrange it.” _

Mina really is King material, though everyone treats her so casually, the glance in her eyes back there now feeling uncomfortably familiar. She could arrange it and maybe Erik could take a season off of worrying and Matt’s uncomfortable blabbering, finish the season by spending most of his time lying in his cold sheets and thinking about guitars and Leon.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Erik curls against the wall and stares at the window by the ceiling. His headache pulses a little bit. _ Power through it, man. Just don’t start on the really meta shit. _ The song is safe enough. And somehow a blackbird, though he has never seen one, somehow still exists as an entity in his head. The bird is sleek and preened. It caws, chirps gentle. He can see the dark silhouette of its wings as it flaps away, those individual feathers, a keen beak, sharp attentive eyes. He’s never seen one and he barely knows the concept of a bird itself if he’s being honest. But his blackbird, somehow, is the most beautiful one in the world.

Erik stays in his bed for another day, stays in his head for an indefinite amount of time. He gives everyone a bullshit excuse to feed to admin, that he pulled something while training and it hurts to breathe or some shit, and Mina pulls a favor with a guy in infirmary who’s interested in her so everything works out. He takes his boosters and sleeps too much and Lukas pats his head a lot, like he’s way younger than he is.

Things are quiet and Erik doesn’t see Leon in this time. His head is occupied.

Meanwhile the bird feeds on his silence and blossoms open, flying high into the wide sky of his mind, and he very slowly begins to branch and let himself blossom open. It’s easy to spend several hours lying in bed developing bedsores or some shit while he thinks about paintings or French fries or politics. (He can’t imagine one, he can’t imagine how they taste, and he can’t imagine how negotiation works or what countries exist.) He knows he’s in the United States, he knows about states, but he can’t name a single one.

_ Yet that doesn’t stop you from spending days on trying to come up with them. _

Erik doesn’t think about going back out of his dorm, or about admin. Admittedly it scares him to think about admin, to think about what would happen if they found out, whether they would kill him or something else. So he doesn’t.

(It’s a foolproof solution and it’s probably setting him up for major failure, but whatever.)

Sometimes the bird is lonely and wants to talk to Lukas or Mina or even Matt, to ask them if they know what butterflies or flowers are like, if this is all just a fucked up dream. However, that has about the same chance of happening as Erik going back to matches and training. Leon, however, clearly knew what he was talking about, but he’s also new, and Erik has a feeling talking to him will only fuck things up. _ When I’m ready _. Which may as well be never, but he can dream? Sure.

Endless hours or days or weeks pass and everything blurs together into one smear of gray. Lukas brings him his boosters and they exchange casual words every so often and Erik loses track of how much time passes. He only gets out of bed when everyone’s gone to piss and go back to bed. Mina had placed their whole team on break, so Lukas mostly talks about whatever happened in the training room that day, team placings, whatever.

It’s hard to care. It’s hard to feel lonely and distanced from everyone else; even though it’s his own choice to bundle up in his room and think depressing thoughts, every laugh or reference to the team and friends and others makes his very core shrivel up a little tighter, a core deeper than his subconscious and the blackbird itself.

Things are settled and normal as they are when you become a fucking hermit. And then during an unidentifiable day, while Lukas is out in the mess hall with the others, the song comes out of his mouth like he’s speaking normally the moment he opens his mouth to take a deep breath.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” and his voice cracks on the higher pitch at the end, it doesn’t sound exact or anything. Erik’s voice shivers like he’s frozen. “T-take these broken wings, and learn to fly.”

The stuttering and shakiness doesn’t hide the beauty of the song emerging out of his own voice, the most unique and exquisite feeling rising out of the waters of his head. _ I did this. I created those words, from my own voice, shitty as it is, I replicated the bird itself. _ He swallows and forces the next words out, and the feeling keeps rising, unsinkable.

“All your life. You were only waiting, for this moment to arise.”

Things are steadying themselves and it just gets better and better, a lyricism flavoring his voice. It’s miraculous somehow to hear it. The bird chirps loud and he can hear the wings flapping, the beads of its eyes shining wetly, talons comfortable in his head and grounding. It’s like the dead of night in this room, truly. Nothing moves except his lips mouthing through the words. The room is black and the window still shines with the same light as it does at night.

No more words come, though he knows them. The blackbird sings in the dead of night, Erik thinks, and for the first time in so long he sits up in bed and things are very, very okay. He’ll do some matches, he’ll go back to his normal life. Somewhere deep in that metaphorical night, he’ll finish the song, he’ll listen to Leon’s other songs. He’ll talk to his team. He’ll do what he needs to and things will be as alright as they can be.

There will be no more tantrums and that’s fine.

Erik’s ready to dig as deep as he can into West Point Military Institution while doing all of these things.

Standing is very, very uncomfortable to engage in at first, worse than all the times before, and his head swirls and his vision churns his eyes blind. He trips off the ladder down from his bunk. The dorm floors freeze up his toes and he still can’t see a thing, and Erik resists the urge to _ shriek _ when the chill fully sinks in.

He takes blind steps in the direction of the bathroom and prays there’s nothing to faceplant on. _ First time out of bed in probably a year or something and he splits his fucking skull open. Just imagine everyone’s reaction to that shit. You should do it just to see what happens. _

The wall is equally freezing under his hands as he palms his way over to what’s hopefully the restroom and not the door out. If anyone sees him in this state and admin hears about it, Erik would probably literally die, so he fumbles for an extra long time just to make sure he’s not fucking himself before he opens the door.

The weak bathroom light still sears his eyes like a fucking laser show. _ I probably went blind and atrophied all my muscles, honestly, I’m surprised I can still walk. _ Pissing after all that is extremely satisfying and it’s probably the most peaceful he’s ever felt.

Looking in the mirror, though, is really not peaceful at all. Erik’s already a pale princess and that combined with his pale-ass hair and eyes makes the eye bags so prominent it’s like paint, deep purple rubbed deep into his eye skin. 

_ Didn’t I spend all that time in bed? Sleeping? Why the fuck do I look like a dead person? _

(He always looks like a dead person, but that’s not the point.)

Erik spends probably too much time trying to fix his hair and bangs and the weird cowlick on the side. No amount of water and combing and smoothing will make him look any less disheveled, which is a reality he has to confront after ten minutes of hair pulling amounts to a marginally better bedhead. _ I’m going to make the most amazing first impression. _

_ I really do look like I spent a week lying in bed. Wow, pretty surprising, huh. _

He puts on normal clothes, feeling like some kind of Erik imposter, and spends a nice minute or ten contemplating over whether to open the door and go out or not before actually doing it.

The hallway is satanically bright and Erik finds himself squinting half of the way to the mess hall. Even though his eyes burn, the distant sound of booster tubes clicking and idle chatter make their way to his ears, and it’s all so familiar and fucked up he has to stop several times. (He’s also out of breath from _ walking _, which is embarrassing as all hell.)

Erik lurks awkward right outside, ready to open the door and walk in, ready to jump out of the way if someone leaves the mess hall and swings the door in his face. He thinks about seeing Leon, about listening to Matt talk.

It sounds kind of good, in a fucked up kind of way.

The bird is silent and absent, and Erik’s hand reaches to push the door open on its own accord, and his feet move unconsciously in.

It’s like he’s floating above all of it, moving toward their usual table as chatter swells for a moment and then wanes away from him. Everything is alright, like always, so he sits next to Lukas and across from Matt and lets his dazed thoughts settle like silt to the bottom.

And things are good in his small bubble of slow shock for much too long, until he catches Lukas and Matt’s frowns all sunken in.

“Erik,” says Matt, normal enthusiasm out the window. “Erik, are you listening? Do you— do you understand?”

“Huh?”

_ You fucked up, Erik. _ His inner self is torn between laughing so loud it’s weird or crawling under the table.

Lukas looks a little more than exasperated for good reason. “Erik. I didn’t want to talk to you about it since you were clearly out of it, nice job, Matt.” He takes a very Erik-like deep breath. “But I’ll repeat it again, I guess. Mina never actually suspended team matches, mostly because she and Beatrice were taken out a couple days after you started your hermitage. Anyways, there wasn’t much of a point of getting out of bed for you, since we don’t really do anything now.”

The bubble shatters, pops, melts into the ground, and Erik is left exposed to the reality of the words that just came out of Lukas’s mouth. “What— why— I’m. What?”

His sentences refuse to string together. Matt’s frown is no longer comical and all over his face; instead, it’s settled into the smile creases around his eyes, and he sips his booster slow.

“Beatrice and Mina were transferred,” Matt says very deliberately, and his eyes darken with each word. “To different facilities. We have no idea why, but we kind of do; well, okay, we don’t.”

Lukas sighs like a tired parent. Matt just runs his hands through his hair in a fidgety fashion.

Lukas turns to Erik, hands him his boosters, stares back down at the table. “Wasn’t your fault, or anyone’s, so don’t worry about it.” And the memory of his last interaction with the two of them resurfaces, of Mina’s ethereal aura and those glances the two of them swapped, and Erik’s _ so _certain Lukas and Matt know exactly why those two were “transferred”. It’s not even a certainty at this point, only a definite fact.

“Huh,” he just says, because there’s nothing more to be said at this point, because if the bird comes out here in the middle of all these people he’ll probably suffer for it. Matt still smiles at him all normally, though something harsh lingers behind his face.

They sip in silence. Lukas gets up in his usual abrupt way and waits outside the doorway for the two of them to finish. Somehow Erik tolerates and is okay with waiting for and going along with Matt, probably because his edgy moping is actually kind of relatable now, maybe because Erik is repressing his inner petulant child. _ “Don’t treat me like a child, Lukas,” huh. Go you, Erik. _

Somehow Matt is still very fond of him like a brother, even though Erik is incredibly _ Erik _. Sometimes Erik will catch him with a pleasant settled expression on in his general direction, this radiant solid aura of trust and human tenderness always beaming from him, and his confidence over Erik’s inherent goodness is equal parts odd and endearing. (He’s such a loser it’s a little bit unreal.)

(He also somehow summoned up enough affection to balance out Lukas and Beatrice and their soul-crushing apathy? _ That’s _ the real miracle here.)

They finish and exit and for a second or two the chittering of cadets intensifies as they pass, waning as the two of them approach Lukas in the doorway. Matt clears his throat and points in the direction of the dorms, already veering his weight all the way right.

“Yes, we’re totally going back there after Erik spent half of his damn life in that dorm room, seems about right,” Lukas says. Erik successfully contains his riotous laughter at the sass no matter how much it pains him.

It just slides off Matt, who rifles through his hair with a youthful smile. “Alright, alright. Lead the way, then, if you’re so smart.”

“I am.”

Erik really can’t help it now and the seriousness shatters with every second he’s laughing. _ It’s kind of stupid to laugh at Lukas’s bland snarking? It’s also the funniest shit, so. _

Yes, Erik really does love his brother, this frankly odd person who is the most important. What a life.

They head to the library. Part of Erik feels extremely alienated knowing they’re going to discuss Mina and Beatrice and that all the people around him can probably see the waves of anticipation emitting from every pore. Part of Erik feels like a bad bitch on a mission. Lukas and Matt are doing just fine, resting in their casual dynamic with no weirdness like they have all the time in the world, and it’s all well and good except for the fact that the bird has started to come alive again.

Because really, why would Mina and Beatrice be separated? Why would they be transferred? Mina was definitely a star King, her shitty team aside, and Beatrice was no slouch either. The bird wonders if they heard music, if they remembered they didn’t remember, if they learned to sing. And a slow fear crawls up against him, and Erik feels it worm its way through his spine and up his neck.

He thinks about being transferred as they slide into one of the booths in the back.

“So,” says Matt, his voice very gossip-ready. “First off.”

Lukas rolls his eyes, pulls a book off a shelf and opens to a random page. “Get on with it.”

Somehow, Erik can’t feel their casualness or enthusiasm at all now. The laughter’s gone.

“Mina and Beatrice…” Matt sighs. “Basically, we don’t know the exact official reasons. But one night we hung out in the mess hall, went to bed, and the next day we were notified that all of our team activities like matches were cancelled and those two were transferred to somewhere else. Admin told me they were in different facilities.”

Erik nods along and Lukas flips to a page close to the end. He skims the page, turns a couple more, takes another one. “Those two were in a relationship,” he says, and he takes one glance before pulling another one off the shelf. “I mean, it was obvious, but for your information it was official.”

No, it wasn’t obvious at all. Erik doesn’t know whether he’s shocked or shocked. But alright.

Well, maybe not so much. In hindsight, it makes sense, that familiar closeness around them, that gentleness in their eyes, and the bird is momentarily calmed by the fact that none of them were involved in anything shady and that admin didn’t do anything terrible.

Matt looks a little distressed, though, and he scratches his head. “I’ll be honest, I was so happy for them.” The slowest breath he’s ever seen Matt take. “But the transfer is fucked up. I didn’t even know that was against the rules, and Beatrice has been our friend forever. I honestly loved her in the most platonic way, to be real, and now we have no idea if we’ll ever see her again.”

Lukas continues his “reading” but nods. “Yeah.”

A long pause. “Yeah, admin never even told us why. But I’m assuming that’s the answer they’ll provide if we ask.”

He sighs, then says, “I hope she’s alright.”

“Why would they just transfer her, though? And who would snitch? Is that even against the rules?” Erik finds himself with the beginnings of anger all over his face, no matter how much he tries to keep it in.

Matt has a similar expression on now, a little bit of pain all over, his expressiveness proving a glaring beacon in this context. “I don’t know, and somehow I doubt it was just the relationship.”

“I don’t think so either,” Lukas says, and his voice lowers with his eyes. “To be honest, I don’t really think they were really transferred to separate facilities either. I definitely know several people here having sex and all that and yet nothing has happened to any of them, and the whole transfer thing is just off to me, especially carting them off in the middle of the night without talking to any of us about it first. The whole situation reeks.”

“I’ll kill you if you confront admin, though,” says Matt, very sincerely and earnestly as he says a fucking death threat. Alright, you do you. “If you risk it like that, I—”

It’s another tender moment, like Erik’s getting prodded in the throat. God help him.

Lukas just scoffs and adds another book to his stack. “I think I know what I’m doing. Thank you for that heartfelt threat. But yeah, I’m not going to.”

And then he turns to Erik, and the bird is _ so _ ready to spill the entire story as soon as it sees the shimmer of Lukas’s eyes, beak and voice preparing a song to sing. Lukas stays cool. “Anyways, that’s what’s up. Questions or was that a sufficient group presentation.”

“No,” Erik forces out. “That’s it. You sure you’re not hiding anything else?”

Matt sighs and pushes his hair out of his face and crosses his arms on the table. “Well, to be honest, as a duo they probably got up to some suspicious stuff, though we don’t really know what. Bea didn’t say shit.”

“She didn’t, yeah.”

“Huh.”

And they sit there for a long while after the conversation dies out, mostly watching Lukas as he flips page after page at the speed of light. If Erik asks him any questions on any of those subjects he knows Lukas will provide a full, detailed answer complete with page citations, and that’s probably the most undercover infuriating thing about this whole thing, that Lukas is absorbing every single word in that enormous stack of books _ while _they have a serious discussion.

Where’d he learn to read, asks the bird. Where?

Erik tries and fails to suppress his nausea at the thought.

Matt pulls out a tube of booster and sucks it all down, almost nervously. Erik doesn’t blame him for feeling that way, with the whole Beatrice situation, with the fact that they almost certainly have not revealed the whole truth to him.

It’s a mess. The bird rises, and Erik is scared of that beauty a little, scared to think about it all.

“Lukas Vondel, Erik Vondel, Matthias Kirk.”

Erik nearly shits his fucking pants. An admin is standing right there, right at their fucking library table, dressed in pressed crispy white and staring stonily.

“Yes,” Lukas says in the same dead tone. “What is it.”

“I have an announcement from the administration,” he says. “Two new additions have been added to your training squadron and an official match has been arranged. Please make your way down to the entry point as soon as possible.”

Lukas opens his mouth to respond and the admin is already gone, his white suit not making a single sound when he speeds out.

“Are you—” Matt laughs, bewildered, a disturbance creeping over his smile. “Are you kidding me?!”

Erik has already gone numb, because he’s been lying in his fucking dorm bed for over a week. And now admin is probably punishing his ass for it and he’ll get to die ten consecutive times on the Board after not training for so long. _ I can’t even run without getting tired! How the fuck am I supposed to participate in a real match! How do they expect any of this from me? _

“I wonder who our new members are,” says Lukas.

Erik opens his mouth to agree. “Yes, because that’s what really matters right now, not that Beatrice and Mina were literally snatched out and that I’m going to feed enemy Bishop so hard they’ll have a whole ass meal by the time the match is over.”

Oops. Erik isn’t sorry at all. All facts, no fiction here.

Matt opens his mouth to say something and then shuts it, probably thinking better. Lukas just snickers and gets up.

“You’ll be fine. Let’s go,” he says, holding out his hand, and the bird flies away when Erik takes it. He’s out of shape and they’re going to lose and that’s fine. He cannot bring himself to care any longer.

The important thing now is keeping the bird asleep. Things will be okay.

So they all get up, Lukas puts away his books as fast as he skimmed them, and the three of them go. It’s strange to walk with these two in too many ways. They have this dynamic between them, this tenseness at all times, and though Matt likes to chatter and Lukas likes to shove him whenever he leans too close it’s honestly a little off. Erik has never been able to shake the feeling they’ll start either screaming or kissing, maybe at the same time. And of course, walking as a “team” without Beatrice and Mina makes him uncomfortable as hell, the gap where they should have been feeling glaringly obvious.

It’s strange to think back on it now, to the time before the bird and Leon. Whenever they would walk around as a group, maybe to the entry point or the mess hall, Erik would always lag a little behind. Beatrice and Mina would always shift a little to the front. The thought is comforting and the lack of it is the opposite.

“I’m worried,” Matt says. No one responds.

He continues his monologue. “I am, though. Mostly about Bea. Okay, pretty much all about Bea and Mina. If I’m being honest? I’m kind of scared, you know? It’s been a week and I’ve been trying to avoid it, but it just keeps following me everywhere, and it’s kind of nice and happy because part of me wants them to be in a good place, and it’s also scary as fuck because. Well. You know. Because.”

“Because,” Lukas repeats, continuing the cycle of redundancy. _ Should I just start repeating every single word they say? Honestly. _

“Like a swan,” says Erik, surprising even himself. “A beautiful swan.”

Swans are beautiful, that much he knows, beautiful and white and regal, their wings preened and wide open. Lukas turns to stare at him with his dead eyes.

“Hmm?”

Matt turns too, serious face on, and a precarious emotion floods Erik, the bird cawing and crying in his head, and _ dear lord I take it back, I take it all back, just forget I said that, fuck, forget it now! _

“Don’t,” Lukas says simply.

And they turn back around and Matt is already talking about something else and Erik is a little more than scared out of his fucking wits.

_ What the fuck was that. What the fuck is don’t! What the hell did he want to say? They’re totally hiding something. Holy shit, what if Lukas knows, what if he can actually think about any of this shit without fucking dying. He and Matt and Beatrice and Mina totally fucking knew all of it. They knew about just how long we’ve been here, about not knowing shit, about how we’re not supposed to know shit because some shady things are going on, how our whole lives have probably been in— _

A headache hits him then, as it did before, a sharp crack in his forehead branching back and down through his neck, and Erik’s whole body shivers and it _ hurts _ . It fucking _ hurts _ and he grits his teeth so hard he probably fucked them up forever, and the pain ebbs and pulses up again.

_ It is taking every fucking particle in my entire body to not scream. Oh my God. _

This is probably the worst one yet; the other ones he experienced in Leon’s dorm and his own were bad, sure, but right now Erik would rather die than continue it and it’s all the bird’s fault. Erik has had many regrets and bad decisions in his memory-less life and he is pondering every single one right now. Lukas and Matt are paying no attention to the person dying behind them, as usual.

_ Please, God, we need to be at the entry point right fucking now so I can get on my tranqs before I fucking die from this headache! _

And so they are. Erik is nearly blind his vision is spotting so hard and he surges into their booth with the fury of a thousand nosy cadets. He stumbles into the chair, doesn’t even give the new teammates a second thought, feels the standard prick of the needle sliding in, and then the tranqs sift into his head and everything is fine. Erik is miraculously settled in those moments before they get down onto the Board, settled though this is the most impromptu match he’s ever done and his teammates are none other than Edward and Anya.

Wait, Edward and Anya?

And then the scenery around him melts away, catching a glimpse of Lukas and Matt talking, and Anya fucking Braginsky is sitting in the chair next to him with a slow serene smile all over her and the headache is gone, but. What the fuck!

Things shift further and further. He tries to stay cool and calm. The world is black and that antiseptic smell he never noticed is now noticeably absent, and Erik takes a good moment to appreciate just how fucked up their new teammates are as a choice made by admin.

(Anya used to beat the shit out of Mina on a regular basis, probably the most brutal fighting/beating Erik has ever seen a person do, and somehow it went completely unchecked by admin. The bird questions that shit now. This was back when Mina and Beatrice were just becoming friends, and Anya was Mina’s sole tormentor. There are probably reasons Erik doesn’t know of, but he still remembers that shit, Mina crying in a way he has never seen since. Mina herself seemed so incapable of crying the whole time she was here; and yet there she was all those years ago, each breath coming out vivid like a wound, and he can still remember that shit. Beatrice’s expression is still there. Beatrice’s shaky fury at admin for not doing a single thing is still there, and it echoes all around in his brain still, her voice like a scream though it was barely louder than a whisper. It’s still there after all this time. He remembers.

That’s Anya. And that’s their new King, their new toplane carrier, their new team leader.)

Anya always scares the shit out of him and always elicits the strongest pity, and Erik has no idea why. (Well, for the second one. Her pain mods explain the former and for good reason.) And the choice of her as a replacement King is very obviously a hit at Mina, a hit at Beatrice, and the thought fills him with that same rage. Jesus, he doesn’t even know who they’re matched against and he’s already on the losing track.

And yet none of it is false. Edward was probably chosen just to spite them too, if Erik is being honest.

(Edward was a fucking snake. He _ is _ a snake. He’s a whole ass snake in the grass and he even spits poison and Erik mostly feels bad for Matt, who has to duolane with the guy who told Mina he’d kill her if she didn’t have sex with him. Did Erik mention the cadets in this place are literal fucking garbage? Did he mention how Edward threatened to gouge Beatrice’s eyes out if she didn’t “back off”? _ I always forget just how shitty these people are, and then I’m reminded, and then I remember why I don’t have any friends. Thank the fucking lord. I hope Edward chokes on his own fucking poison and dies. _)

Really, it’s true. They were saddled with fucking scum, and now their team performance will pay the price, and the bird is ready to gouge admin’s eyes out. Why train them if they’re going to fail every single match? Erik has questions that need some fucking answers.

They finally spawn on the Board, probably since Matt and Lukas were too busy talking about how they were going to lose so bad to actually get on tranquilizers, and the deep green in the trees above comes to life. His feet tingle first, then his legs, then his torso, arms, and his face snaps into the new reality last.

_ Of course, the first thing I see is Anya. I fucking hate my life. _

She’s still smiling soft, gentle, turning to get her starting items. Lukas immediately sets off into the forest without breathing a word to any of them, and Matt doesn’t even bother with an uneasy smile as he snatches up his items. _ Good, he’s not trying to be nice and waiting for Edward. If he was I’d be the one killing him. _

So Erik takes his stuff and thinks about midlaning and tries to stay away from simmering in the fires of his hatred, which is literally impossible, but a guy can dream. _ I hope they feed a shit ton. I hope we fucking lose botlane and toplane because of them. Me and Lukas and Matt will let them sit on two-minute cooldowns and push mid and we’ll fucking win. Literally, watch me. _

It’s shitty but this is probably the best motivation he’s ever had. Go Erik.

The grass and mud are cool and familiar under him, the air clean and his head clear, and things are alright even though they’re not. The opposing Bishop is farming away on gold and pays him no mind, so they don’t really bother each other at all. It’s kind of chill and nice and Erik likes standing around performing the mechanical actions of farming without actually thinking about anything.

“So, Erik,” says the Bishop. “How’s life?”

For the second time that day, Erik very nearly urinates through his pants.

“Excuse me?”

“I hope you’re feeling better now.”

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. “Leon?”

Leon laughs so joyous (especially regarding recent events) it’s a little disturbing. “Yeah! How’s your life going, heard your team got suspended.”

“How could you tell it was me behind the mask,” Erik says, frowning deeper though he wants to avoid these topics, “and you have so much fucking explaining to do it’s unreal.”

Leon taps the side of his mask. “Think about what you’re going to say next, Erik.”

A moment later, alarms blare in his head and wake the bird and he very much understands exactly what Leon is saying, so Erik quiets himself down. _ If admin does something to you too Matt and Lukas would probably lose their minds, stay fucking low. _

“So how’s the farming going? I’m gonna back soon,” Leon says amiably, as if they aren’t in a literal death match right now. Things aren’t completely casual, though; Leon’s very safely under the range of his turret and Erik is camped beneath his. If either of them step a little too close it’s an instant death.

It’s fucked up, and Erik’s actually having a little bit of fun moving in and out of range, and his gold is stacking nicely.

Leon salutes in his direction. “I’m backing and building, see you in a few.”

Erik doesn’t bother responding. For all he knows Leon is just retreating back into the fog to sneak a kill in, and he pings Lukas on his wristwatch just to be safe. Leon’s great, but this is also a match. (Erik may lose terribly but he’s going to put some effort into it. Why not.)

He takes a couple seconds to browse the Board via his watch. Lukas is roaming pretty close to midlane, trading blows with the person Erik assumes is Leon’s enemy Queen. Edward is roaming too, though closer to botlane, leaving Matt to push the lane by himself. Matt doesn’t look so happy about that decision, to be honest. _ Fucking typical. Using his mods as an excuse to roam. Yes, you have some weird fucking sixth spider sense, no one cares, it’s not cool enough to let you roam randomly instead of helping your lane! You can sense someone breathing next to you, big deal! Literally the main reason Rook goes botlane with Knight is because Knight is too fragile to go solo, and this guy is supposed to be a Rook. Probably just wants Matt to feed. I literally hate him. _

Edward smiles to himself in the little projected window. _ Snake alert! Snake spotted roaming botlane! _

(Will Erik ever stop this shit? The answer is and always will be no.)

Anya, on the other hand, is getting aggressive up top. Erik assumes Leon’s teammate Kitty is the one she’s trading blows with, judging by the plated fists she’s wearing. There’s already blood spraying and shit and it’s getting frankly disgusting; toplane is fucking brutal. Holy shit, there go Anya’s teeth, and then they pull out the sharp things and Erik has to physically exit that whole thing.

_ Holy shit. Mina’s battles were already nasty enough, but holy shit. Anya’s scum but she can fucking push lane. She could probably tower dive and destroy their turret right now. _

(He feels a little sick now, seeing the way Anya punches again, and it’s funny enough seeing as he’s died so many times on the Board.)

“Miss me?” Leon’s back. Fuck.

Erik quite literally twitches at this. Why is he so jumpy today? Is it the ghost of that headache earlier in the back of his head? Is it because he spent a week doing nothing but sleeping and internally dying? Is it because he’s too busy snarking to himself to actually pay attention to things?

“No, not particularly.” He stands and stretches.

“Huh,” Leon says, then swings his baton-length blade so sudden Erik nearly gets his hand chopped off, and the fight’s on.

The sound of his knife on Leon’s is harsh and clear. Leon lunges deep in, blade twisting sudden. Erik can already feel that primal pheromone panic sweep in, and it takes everything he can to stop himself from collapsing into himself, jumping back and flicking his knife up.

_ Score. _ A thick bead of dark blood swells up on Leon’s neck, the cut slashing out.

“Nice,” Leon says, a proud-father smile on his face as he pops a tranq and slaps a patch on the wound, and the intense euphoria of a victory at last makes Erik absolutely giddy. _ Okay, maybe I’m not doing so bad. Maybe I’m doing kind of great. Who knows. _

“Bad judgement—” Leon says. _ Fuck! _ And the awe at his own victory melts away, and this time Leon succeeds in leaving a deep gash on his side when he pushes in, and it takes pure reflex for Erik to parry his knife and fling it out.

Leon laughs and laughs. _ What the hell is so funny. _ Erik’s cut is starting to hurt like hell and the tranqs aren’t helping shit, and things are just not going so well right now after all. No more trading. Erik backs away to farm a little more and proverbially lick his wounds.

“Sorry,” Leon sighs, mirth in his voice, not sorry at all. “I love you—” he laughs even harder— “Sorry! Sorry, I love this. It’s so great. Let’s trade some more damage, that was great. Our mods make such a good matchup it’s unreal.”

_ Oh really. Oh, really. _

(Mostly their matchup just makes Erik want to die. Leon is literally controlling Erik’s reflexes by manipulating his gut feelings and it’s kind of really bad and he’s hoping Lukas lurks around so they can pull off a gank.

“C’mon!” says Leon. He beckons with three fingers.

The bush and forest rustle like mad to his right and Erik immediately jumps way back, nearly tripping over himself to see Lukas and the enemy Queen both in hot pursuit of each other. Lukas is bloodied and so is the Queen, wounds covering both of them as they stumble through midlane, and Leon immediately joins the chase.

_ Fuck! No backup? _

No one responds to Erik’s pings and he doesn’t blame Matt since he has to deal with fucking Edward.

Erik’s a little desperate now. Well, maybe a lot? Probably. It’s at the point now where he’s contemplating backing off and going back to base and staying there for the rest of the game. The enemy Queen already has a pistol out and starts gunning away, bullets driving through Lukas’s legs, and down he goes. Shit is going downhill faster than he thought it would, so Erik dives between them. He hooks an arm over the Queen’s shin and his foot into Leon’s knee. The gunshot sounds are bright and deafening, right in his fucking ears, but it’s fine since they’re all on the ground now and his knife moves on its own, driving into Leon’s stomach, he makes this fucked up cough noise, and the Queen tries to go for him and fear is all around him but it’s perfect and down goes his knife.

“An enemy has been slain,” proclaims the announcer. “Double kill!”

The two blood slick bodies are by him now, existing dead in a space where they once were alive. Erik doesn’t want to think about that anymore. Lukas wordlessly takes the meds and patches handed to him, and Erik backs all the way to base and prays they’ll actually win this game.

(If _ he _could score a double kill the game’s probably going in their favor.)

Erik can barely remember his item build and it’s more muscle memory than anything. He reaches for the handle, then the boots, then the jacket and vest, his eyes still swimming with all that blood though the kill itself was satisfying enough.

_ In case it wasn’t already glaringly obvious, I don’t like blood and I certainly don’t like killing people. _ It’s true, though, completely. Erik is quite possibly the worst fit for this place: killing makes him squeamish, especially with a knife when blood goes everywhere. Just the thought of that sound and sensation, the crunch of bones, all of it disturbs him a shit ton, that gushing wave of red all over his hands. Yet another reason to start using guns. And yet things still feel better and more comfortable with the knife no matter how hard he tries, so Erik learns to give up on that while he still can though this whole process disturbs him.

_ I’m a Bishop. My domain is supposed to be damage trading and power kills. What the fuck, honestly. _

What the fuck indeed. He starts out of base in his new boots and vest and prays this pattern will snowball out of control until he can one-hit people dead and excessive blood stays unspilled.

“Hey, Erik,” says Edward’s voice behind him, this soft floaty thing so contrary to his actual snaky personality, and Erik so wants to die right now.

_ I’m not even fucking responding to this shit. Keep talking, bitch. _

“Heard your double kill,” he says coolly. “Pretty good compared to your other matches. How’s the game going so far for you, huh?”

“Fine.” _ Please leave me alone I have a lane to push. And I didn’t miss that jab at my match history. _

“Botlane’s going well, if I do say so myself,” says Edward, and when Erik turns around to give him a death glare he just smiles peevishly. “Though Matt could use some work.”

_ Your fucking face could use some work! I can rearrange it for free! Oh my god, I fucking hate admin for this! _ Erik tries and fails to stay cool and collected. Yes, Matt needs some work. So does everyone else, and mostly Edward just needs to shut the fuck up.

Erik settles on a mediocre, "Huh," like he's sort of interested in what's going on, and then he hightails it right the fuck out of there as fast as possible. Yes, he's a little scared he'll slip on the mud or that Edward will try to continue the conversation. No, he doesn't care enough to actually slow down.

_ I swear, if Leon's pushing lane hard, I'll die. I'll be so fucking dead. _ Yes, it's a great time, and Erik checks his minimap and watch while he walks. Anya and Kitty are still duking it out, through now they're trading damage rather than beating the shit out of each other. Thank god. Lukas and Matt are ganking up on the enemy Knight, whose rook is nowhere to be seen, and Erik honestly can't tell which side is winning and which side is losing. 

Leon is mysteriously absent from their lane when he gets there and Erik takes some extra time to ward and update his defense (because if that Queen fiasco happens again in this game he'll probably suffer a heart attack.) His vision cams combined with the vision from the rest of the team's wards don't expose Leon's location at all. It's sketchy as fuck. _ If I die via gank I'll scream, honestly. I say it every time and every time it's true _.

Ganking really is a terrible way to die. At least when you spar and trade damage, adrenaline is involved, and you're too busy feeling excited to feel scared. But the opposite team ganking you, ganging up and killing you, is such a terrible experience precisely because there's no adrenaline. Only fear and surprise lingers, because one moment you're farming and having a chill time, and the next four enemy team members have jumped out of the bush and it takes three hits before you're dead on the floor. If this team ganks I'll be so scared. I'll actually piss myself for the first time here on the Board while Leon pumps out his pheromones and his pretty teammate knocks my skull out of my head. _ What a way to die. My last moments will probably be in debilitating fear. _

Farming is good and easy now and he'll accumulate enough gold to back, build, and roam lanes soon. This is his least favorite part— midlane Bishop during the middle of the game is absolutely terrible. Mindlane in the beginning is easy; you just farm and trade damage. Midgame, you just walk around and act as a weak queen, helping gank and sitting around forest. (Late game is exciting enough since you get to have team battles.) 

But no, Erik's stuck midgame Bishop. Lovely. Amazing. He questions his validity at this sometimes and/or all the time.

(Part of him thinks/knows he hates midgame mostly because it requires him to actively _ think _ about every single decision, something he's extremely bad at, and usually midgame consists of Erik pushing way too hard and dying a shit ton since he can never learn from his mistakes. Queen is such a fucked up difficult position mostly _ because _Queens have to roam forest and make those kind of decisions for the whole game. And the forest itself has so many boost options and strategic points it’s impossible for normal people to fully consider.)

(Of course, Lukas is in no way one of the normal people.)

Erik heads into the swath of forest between botlane and midlane and questions his existence in a light and joking manner. Great. He gets half a team boost in when Lukas’s voice cuts in.

“Erik, their Queen is coming into your direction. I don't know if he warded and can see you or not, but you should probably go help out botlane anyway. They look like they need some help."

_ I wonder why. Probably because Edward is an incompetent shithead. _

"Alright, I'll go there. Not gonna get ganked this time."

Lukas hmms, which means he either thinks that that's a completely false statement or that Erik's acting like an adorably petulant child. Both could be improved upon, honestly, but he doesn't say anything else. Last time Erik came up with a snarky response he ended up not checking the minimap and (you guessed it) got ganked.

Yes, he's a true professional.

Botlane really is struggling. Edward is still nowhere in sight and Matt is mostly farming and that's it. Erik doesn't blame him, since it's two against one: the enemy Knight and Rook are watching very closely as he collects his bonuses, waiting for one step out of line, waiting for Matt to fuck up sooner or later.

_ Lukas was totally right, where's Edward? Out in forest making rape threats? _

"Erik!" Matt exclaims over commlink, turning toward him. "Thank god, that garbage disappeared on me and I haven't been able to farm properly at all. I've already died twice."

"Huh," Erik says, and now it's his turn to act surprised. Matt, though he's immensely strong, is always a little weaker on the Board than everyone else defenses-wise. He's a true glass cannon, really. His attack power grows immensely late game, to the point where he can one-hit with ease, but especially at the beginning of the game _ you could probably one-hit him _.

Not as a Rook, but as a King, maybe even as a Bishop. For all his flexing and showboating he really cannot defend himself for shit. It kind of sucks to be him.

Erik starts pushing a little in botlane now, trying to stay cautious while taking back the distance Matt lost, and the two of them work familiar together even though Erik can’t remember the last time they trained or fought like this. It probably stems from the fact that Matt and Lukas cling to each other like parasites in a leech, and so by extension Matt clings to Erik too. Each movement is smooth and in sync and it’s kind of great.

The enemy Knight stirs, though, and the Rook places a small hand onto a string of pouches on her belt. (_ Fuck, a skirmish is probably starting _; Erik prays this’ll go as well as the last one.)

The air is tensing and thickening and Matt tilts back, moving to the rear of their two-person formation. His gut tells him to jerk to the left. It’s not a moment too late, a thin blade whistling past the exact place his throat was, and the Knight’s arm flings out to toss two more.

_ Jesus Christ! They’re so fucking accurate! _ Erik’s honestly _ so _ shook and they’re literally in the middle of a fight. One of the knives flicks off his forearm guards, gleaming sharp. He won’t deny it’s a little more than scary right now. _ That Knight is one ruthless motherfucker. Damn. _

Matt pushes a little further now, tossing Erik a booster as he strafes to the right side of the lane.

(_ Scare them off and dive tower, _reads his ping.)

Sounds stupid, but okay. He signals to fall back now, lagging back and letting the others back a little too. Matt’s a gun user, through and through, so that’s mainly what Erik’s relying on for this play. (Yes, he’s capable of coming up with simple plans, surprisingly enough.)

They back a little bit more, the enemy team relaxing a little bit, and then Matt rushes in with that boundless energy that usually makes Erik want to die. Now, it’s kind of glorious? A little bit? And in he goes, sniping down the turret first though it snaps a couple bullets into his vest, and now Erik’s the one following close behind. The Knight’s already way back out of there, thank god.

And yet the enemy Rook says something too fast for him to understand, and then she runs in too and there’s this searing _ pain! _ It spreads soft and hot over his thigh and Erik can’t even scream it hurts so damn bad.

“C’mon,” yells Matt over comm. “She’s weak! It hurts but let’s go!”

Jesus, it really does. He lunges in nevertheless and swings out as she throws something, probably having to do with her mods (heat? Lack of temperature sensitivity? Whatever it is it’s badass) and the projectiles are flashing in his eyes, everything is chaotic as hell, and on top of that Erik has to somehow play the role of Rook and shield Matt from the knife-throwing Knight in the back while balancing both attack and defense like a proper mid.

Amazing! His headache when he comes out of tranqs will probably be even worse than it already was.

_ Leon’s team really is beating our ass like I said they would. Edward regardless. _

The burning every time the Rook touches him is getting out of hand, and she always misses his stabs to the point where it’s quite infuriating. Matt has already switched weapons, a slick pistol in his hand— if he was still on his semiautomatic Erik would probably be dead right now, not such a reassuring thought. It’s all getting out of hand. Jesus take the wheel.

Somehow, Erik finally lands a hit, and the odd feeling of a knife running through human flesh is now strangely satisfying. The girl stumbles, leans to the side. And there’s the thunderous _ pop _ of the gunshot in his right ear, and there she is dead in the mud.

“Fuck yes!” Matt crows in his ear. Erik doesn’t mind at all, because fuck yes, they’re actually doing good for once.

The commlink cuts in. “It’s not done yet, Matt,” Lukas says, voice dull. “You do realize a massive gank is coming your way. Bishop and Queen and that Knight backed to get a team buff, but they’ll probably circle and corner you—”

He cuts off, and Erik’s already running back. _ Shit! _

If they caught Lukas, well, Erik and Matt are probably screwed. Leon’s on that gank squad and it’ll probably make Erik so distracted he’ll die instantly, if he’s being honest. _ Having friends on the other team is such an advantage. I’ll probably be too busy having an existential crisis to actually speak anyway so. _

“An ally has been slain,” booms the announcer. Fuck yes, they’re losing kills-wise. _ Where is Anya when we actually need her? _

And then Anya’s voice buzzes up right into Erik’s ear, and it takes every drop of restraint humanly possible in his body to not punch a hole in his own head.

“King has left toplane,” and sure it’s helpful because it means the steel-denting girl is coming down their way, and Erik doesn’t bother to respond because he’s petty and angry and Matt has already died three times and he’ll probably die a fourth time.

Matt turns to look behind them, glances down at his watch as they run, and his face clearly pulls into a frown behind the mask. “Wards aren’t spotting them anymore, I’m assuming they took the cams down. Though we’re in our turret territory now so it should be okay.”

Erik lets out a long-suffering sigh and flips through the team stats. “Lukas’s cooldown is going for at least another minute, and we need to get our wards back up again if we want any vision.”

“Edward?” They’re under tower now and Matt tilts his head in Erik’s direction inquisitively. “Well, if you want to. Who knows. Lukas is out, so. Your call, man.”

Part of Erik seethes with hate because his minimap tells him Edward is dicking around in forest and the same part of Erik calls over comm: “Rook, ward lower forest please.” Extra emphasis on please. (So this is why people struggle with teamwork. Fuck that.)

“We have a King for a reason, but okay,” drones Edward back. Matt cracks his knuckles like he’s going to go throttle him, a sentiment Erik agrees with, and it’s just such a great bonding moment even though they don’t exchange a word in the way the best bonding moments are. It seems natural silence (and shared hate of something, to be honest) is the closest you can be with someone, at least in Erik’s eyes.

(Well, if Edward doesn’t ward and they all die, Erik knows exactly who he’s going to beat into a puddle in the training room tomorrow.)

Matt sighs and laughs in the same breath. “Nice combo, Erik, it’s refreshing to duo with you! That was a pretty good time and you got an assist in, huh?” He ruffles Erik’s hair affectionately. “Yeah. Great job. I’m going to roam up midlane after building. Don’t get ganked, okay?”

Erik huffs and tries not to smile though the mask covers his face, as if smiling will acknowledge the fact that yes, he is in fact okay with a second (absolutely fucking ridiculous) brotherly figure in his fucked up confined life.

“Yeah, okay.”

So they part ways, Matt backing to base with a final jovial wave. Erik nets some boosts in the sections of forest Matt actually bothered to ward, keeping an eye on the minimap cams, keeping an eye on Lukas’s cooldown and Edward’s fucking around. This level of micromanagement is extremely satisfying to him and if being King means only having to do this Erik’s here for it.

(Of course, King actually involves building armor like a tank and hitting like a hammer and being able to withstand getting skewered by machine gun bullets, but you can bet Erik’s going to ignore that part for the glamor.)

“I’m back up,” says Lukas. “Why has no one warded.”

Erik plans to keep his mouth shut, but his mouth has other plans. “Huh, wonder how Edward’s doing.”

He’s not even remotely sorry and it’s amazing. Matt chokes audibly over comm and it takes a decent amount of effort to not do the same.

“They literally took down all of our forest cams,” Lukas says, and then Erik catches a glimpse of him moving fast by him, a pale blur against the dark of the forest. “Start on offense.”

So Erik heads back botlane again, since Matt has already camped out midlane. Botlane is the longest lane and it’s a bore, but Erik’s just glad he won’t be seeing Leon down here, to be honest, since he’d probably swoon the wrong way and die. (Yes, he won’t lie.) There’s this strong urge to prove himself to this random kid he’s talked to twice; it seems to manifest everywhere, and it’s right in his face now, that dual want to avoid him so Erik doesn’t make a complete fool of himself and to see him so Erik can slay the game and prove he’s slightly more competent that he looks.

_ I wish Mina was still here, goddammit, so she could say happy things over comm and I wouldn’t want to kill myself because of botlane. _

Farming down here is frustrating indeed. He’s stacked up maybe fifty gold total over the last minute and everything is so slow it’s painful, and no wonder Edward got the fuck out of botlane. He’s still aimlessly roaming without actually doing anything useful. Exhibit A, a literal shitbag.

Maybe most of it is because that one incident with Mina really colored Erik’s perceptions of Edward, but every single thing the guy does is so grating Erik would rather shave all the skin off his body than have to live with him or even be around him. He’s a little bit unpleasant just as a person, and his eyes dart up and out and he’s like a splinter, small and insignificant and painful as fuck.

_ Yes, Erik, we get it, you hate him, and for good reason. Same with Anya. _

It’s true— the two of them act pleasant enough, but, as Erik has demonstrated many a time, every single thing they do seems to absolutely destroy any remnants of his sanity and blasts his anger full speed. Erik’s the kind of person to get hung the fuck up on the smallest things that happen to anyone he knows; and he knew Beatrice and Mina, but those definitely weren’t small things.

Seriously. What the fuck is admin playing at? They definitely knew when Anya was harassing Mina about some shit to the point of physical extortion. They definitely knew when Edward was making his dumbass death threats. And they definitely know now that it’s still a sore spot, and yet here they are, removing Mina and Beatrice and inserting these two. 

(Erik really can’t say he was close to the couple, though.)

Because Beatrice kept to herself outside of Mina and Lukas/Matt, and Mina kept an easy distance from everyone except Beatrice. And yet this one case makes him want to scream, it’s so fucking frustrating to think about, hearing about other people’s drama elicits no reaction, but this.

Just this.

Footsteps rustle through the section of forest to his left, and Erik is jolted out of his contemplations on things that can’t be changed anymore. _ Shit! I knew I was going to have an existential crisis and get distracted, as expected. Nice one, Erik. _

“Hey,” Lukas says in his ear. “We should rush. Let’s finish this game, they’re all out in forest and we have higher mobility. I’ve already warded. Meet end of midlane.”

“Alright,” Erik mumbles, swerving right, praying they can just get this match over with. Those footsteps are getting closer and his heartbeat is pounding louder.

His minimap shows Matt and Lukas doubling up. Edward doesn’t respond and doesn’t seem to move from his area so much, as expected, though Anya swings into forest between toplane and midlane, thank god. So they’ll have a tank for their rush.

“Don’t attract too much attention.”

_ Yes, mom, I got it. _

Erik catches sight of the familiar path of midlane to his side now, and he shifts into the tall grass rimming the lane easily, and things are going good until he hears him.

“How’s it going, Erik?”

And who else is it but Leon? He’s catching up, walking fast, head tilted to one side. _ Jesus, stay fucking calm, don’t get yourself killed, this is probably a trap! Fuck! Stay calm! _

Yes, internally screaming “stay calm” is definitely helping.

“The match is going fine.” He tries and fails to keep the shaking out of his voice.

Leon laughs easily. “Nice! We should hang out when this is done. I promise I won’t overengage you this time.”

The churning panic is hitting now, and Erik turns to break out into a run, seeing through the oily fog to the ever-closer end of the lane, _ shit! I’d love to respond, but I’m kind of about to die, so. _ Different emotions start to rush in now and he’s getting too scared to check behind him which is probably a mistake. His heart pounds with fear, then shock, legs going numb, then panic, then a tidal sweep of something that makes his stomach curl and his limbs freeze, his chest burns, he wants to turn and _ see _ and— 

The pause is fatal, and a wicked sharp blade swings through the air to slice his shoulder, the pain screeching into him even though he dodges. Of course, it’s that killer Knight on the other team; Erik would love to know who they are, preferably so he can congratulate them on effectively freaking him out every single time, and his legs somehow pump faster. The sound of footsteps multiplies behind him.

And there’s Lukas and Matt and his watch says Anya is lurking around in the tall grass and Erik thanks his lucky stars, sprinting out of range though he can barely breathe. Lukas has already cocked his gun and snipes at the approaching group; there are three of them, Leon and the Knight and the Queen.

Their wards show no indication of the enemy King or Rook anywhere, but it’s too late now to fear an ambush, and Lukas’s bullets fling off the Queen’s forearm guards easy. _ Shit. _

“Shit,” says Matt over comm, and his voice raises nervously as he raises his gun too. “Erik, you should probably start taking their base turret.”

For once, Erik doesn’t argue, and he clambers up the pillar of the turret guarding their base as fast as he humanly can. Up here, the fog still blankets the Board and he can’t see much further than the ground below. Still, it’s pretty, a view he can admire, and he keeps his periphery trained on the dark thick ocean of fog rolling all around as he hacks at the gun mounted on the turret. First the automatic mechanism, then prying off the circuit cover and slicing out the wires the way Lukas taught him.

It’s strange. The mounted guns are always a little bit strange. Sometimes they shoot like crazy, sometimes they stay silent, and you never know until you step into their range (something Erik absolutely hates banking on, which is why it takes him three seconds flat to climb these because he’s scared out of his wits. Getting gunned down is quite literally awful every time).

Below him, Lukas and Matt are already at it, Lukas with his big-ass nightstick in one hand, deflecting the Knight’s freaky knives like he’s holding an epic sword. _ He looks so fucking ridiculous, because he is. What a legend. _

(These matches are so fucking ridiculous in general. Erik knows West Point cadets aren’t supposed to be actual soldiers, just test subjects so admin can see how their mods work in a combat situation, but it’s still so incredibly _ weird _. Here’s Lukas with a metal pole and he’s fighting people with guns and throwing knives. The bird is probably the origin of these thoughts and it’s actually one hundred percent correct.)

The turret gun finally sputters, whirrs off, and Erik swings down gripping the edge of the turret with his tacky gloves like he’s much more badass than he actually is. The moment his feet hit the hard ground, Anya emerges from the bush much quicker than she should.

She’s still so, so scary. Towering above everyone else, hands lined and wrapped, she looks like a true King on the Board, and Erik can see why Mina cried the way she did all those years ago especially since he himself wants to cry just seeing her.

_ It’s so weird. I can see why everyone calls this position King, holy fuck. _

Erik doesn’t know so much about chess, though all the lingo and terminology in matches are from it, though the game is the sole thing Lukas really excels at. He knows the pieces only rudimentarily. It’s interesting— Lukas says Queen is technically the most powerful piece and King is weakest, but at the same time chess doesn’t run on damage points or health, it operates on positioning and range, and so he’ll never really know if the King packs a punch or not. Not that it matters, because chess isn’t a match and vice versa. _ Still, why? _ (The real question is why people subconsciously adapted chess names for positions. The official names referred to in their training classes and seminars are always like “defensive position” and “inter-lane roamer” or whatever the fuck.)

And now Anya goes to town and it’s fucking wild. She charges into their cluster, slams relentlessly through the Queen, doesn’t even flinch when one of Matt’s bullets hits her in the bicep.

“Erik, go ward,” Matt blasts into his comm, already heading into the skirmish. Lukas glances up and immediately runs through the tall grass into forest.

_ God, I’m going to have to follow Lukas, and we’re going to have to fight their King and Rook, the two main defensive players, and I’m going to awkwardly lunge and stab a shit ton while Lukas works with his enormous arsenal of every weapon under the sun. _

It’s kind of funny to see Lukas _ wield _ some of that shit. Take the nightstick: it’s shiny and metal and the size of someone’s arm, like a club, and Lukas resembles a stick with a diameter of three centimeters. A twig beating someone to death with an entire redwood is what it looks like every time, and every time Erik wants to laugh and laugh and laugh even though they’re all killing each other.

_ I have so many questions for the people who raised you, Erik. Aren’t you even scrawnier than he is? _

So he follows his brother, the skinny little bastard, up into the forest, dropping wards and vision cams in the trees as he runs along behind.

“Ward here,” Lukas says.

A figure leaps out and down he goes.

_ Shit! _ It’s the enemy King in all her glory, fists already pounding into Lukas’s face to the point where Erik can hear the _ crunching _ (yikes! Oh my god, yikes!) and he doesn’t even think about being reasonable as he tackles her off his brother because they’re a tag team and tag teams don’t let other people crush their skulls.

They both roll off Lukas, now in the dirt. First Erik’s on her, then she pushes his face down, and then he’s back up again. _ Jesus Christ, is she strong. _ Muscle flexes under his hand, her biceps and triceps rolling heavy against him, and Erik is suddenly very scared.

In his periphery Lukas starts swinging the fucking nightstick at a new person, presumably at the missing enemy Rook judging by the mask. Erik’s fighting on his own this time.

Her gloved hand reaches for his throat— _ No! Fuck! She gets my throat and I’m dead! She could strangle me with one finger— _his wrist already hurts where she was gripping him to the point where he’s pretty sure a bone broke, and she’s heavy, so heavy right against him, and it hurts hurts hurts like a bitch.

She reaches again. The King (Kitty? Kitty) grabs him by the shoulder, and in that moment between reaching and pulling him towards her, he somehow twists his way all the way out of her grip.

“Nice,” Lukas says breathless into his mic, and Erik stumbles fast up and away from everything on the ground. Kitty’s right behind him right on his tail and he’s a little bit scared shitless still.

Lukas and the Rook are heavily engaged, Lukas having switched over to his close combat knife as they spar, the Rook flinging those burning-hot metal lobes as if they’re her last resort. Which they probably are. She seems competent enough, though, making up for her utter lack of an item build with an amazing arsenal of kicks and strikes.

It’s so badass and Erik almost forgets about the whole King situation behind him as a strange girl kicks his brother in the head so hard his neck snapping to the side is audible.

_ Can I laugh? Is that socially acceptable right now? _

Lukas stabs her in the side with his serrated knife, lunging back probably to avoid another killer kick before lunging in again, dodging back and forth in a very extra and dramatic manner. The Rook’s very occupied with all this drama and Erik takes the opportunity to go in for the kill.

Something’s wrong and he can immediately feel something’s off; his balance, his position, something. In goes his knife, and she dodges fast, and Kitty’s fingers clamp around the edge of his mask and _ yank _ him.

“Fuck!” he shouts over mic without thinking, and Lukas visibly cringes as he jumps away from another red-glowing orb.

The Rook turns to Erik then, as he’s slammed to the ground, and she tilts away from Lukas’s gun hand and flicks out a vial at him, and it _ holy fucking SHIT it burns! It burns it burns oh my god _ all over, his torso and hands and legs and he’s too busy writhing in pain to get up and get out and before he knows it Kitty’s already buried her fist in his stomach. Jesus Christ. Of course, as soon as he realizes Lukas can’t help he goes down. It’s the natural order of things.

It’s mostly just terrible. Erik vomits instantly when she punches him and she slams her foot down on his head and then it’s all over with that same disgusting crunch.

(He’s dying, and yet the places the Rook splashed him still burn just as bad, and since this isn’t actually real life and he’s just in a simulated dream the vomit isn’t real food vomit, just stomach acid, and his boots are uncomfortably wet on the inside.)

(What a funny detail to focus on. Erik wonders what it’ll be like when he actually dies, what kind of minor or major inconveniences will plague his final breaths on this planet.)

“Good game,” Matt says earnestly as Erik’s consciousness fades right away from him. Yes, it was a good play, he will reluctantly admit, though it ended (of course) with him pushing too hard and dying. Kitty’s health is definitely lower than it was, and Lukas can probably three-hit her easily, as long as he can deal with both her and the Rook.

_ Can he, though? _

_ Yeah, it’s Lukas. Hopefully he’ll get some backup. _

In his last moments, those few seconds where he’s pretty much already dead, Leon’s voice rings droll over his comm: “You got this. Or something.”

_ What the fuck! _

Erik promptly forgets it because now he’s dead, and when he snaps awake standing back at base there’s one word in his head. “Something” is an interesting choice for his subconscious and that’s for sure. Erik can barely remember what Leon said and yet embarrassment still flushes fast through his head.

“Nice play,” Edward says. Erik’s mind is already miles a minute on all the implications of those two words and Leon’s right out of his head before you can say something.

He fumes subtly and picks out a better bullet guard, checks the minimap: like he predicted, enemy King on cooldown (so Lukas _ could _ do it), Lukas and Rook shifting towards end midlane where the main skirmish is. Matt and Anya are still at it and the killer Knight is actually on cooldown.

_ So I guess I’m heading upper forest. We just need to take their base and this’ll be over. _

Leon’s still close to full health (the fuck??) and their Queen is struggling a little, but Matt and Anya are roughly the same. Overall it seems even, a little too even, but that’ll probably be shifted out when Lukas gets on the scene.

It’s good. He feels good about this match, for once, even though he just died via brain hemorrhage. Maybe it’s because their midlane pushing is actually good.

(Then again, watch their whole team immediately get aced and go on cooldown, because that somehow happens in every single match. _ Why are you like this. _)

Erik actually pays some real attention to his surroundings this time as he heads through forest, undergrowth crushing pleasantly beneath his feet. It’s good, and he can already see and hear the skirmish around midlane, the clink of metal soothing in its own weird way, but he circles all the way around because dying twice isn’t the way to go right now.

“Uh, I’m going around you guys, Matt,” he says. “When I ping can you help me take inhibitor?”

Matt enthusiastically agrees with a series of rapid uh-huhs. At a 90 degree angle to his left and through the grass, Erik can see him firing a spray across Leon and the Queen. “Yes! Genius! We’ll bait them further in and we can take them out. The other two are still on cooldown, and Lukas? You’re coming, right? We can ace the team and get the Rook, right? Right?”

“Huh,” Lukas says, and the sound of hissing oil fills his comm. “We’ll see.”

_ Holy shit, oil? Did the Rook splash boiling oil on me? What the fuck? Is she throwing it on Lukas? How is he not screaming? How is he not dead yet? _

“It’s fine,” says Lukas after a couple moments. “I’m backing up to mid.”

Erik highly doubts it’s so fine, but whatever. He has his own job and responsibility right now, and he’s going to actually do it for once, and things are going to be so amazing. Definitely. He swings around safely through the tall grass so now he’s behind Matt and Anya (who is still going _ ham _).

_ Can I use that one item right now? Is it actually useful at the moment, holy shit, it is. _ Wow, he’s shook. The item in question is the camouflage spray everyone touts and yet no one uses, a spray that lasts for a minute on your clothes with special nanopaint that he always picks up at base and never uses. _ My precautions are paying off, fuck yes! _

So he shakes the tube and sprays liberally the way the directions want him to. The moment the paint hits his pants, they ripple darkly, now blending soft with the green of the forest, and same goes for his jacket and mask and shoes. It’s kind of amazing and Erik lets himself feel awed as he runs through the gate to the enemy base.

The Board is set up with the three lanes between the two bases, and at the points the lanes stem from base turrets are stationed against those enormous gates. Thank the lord he’s already taken down the midlane base turret and Erik goes without fearing for his life. It’s been so long since he’s actually done this, the victory run into enemy base to destroy their nexus core, and it’s _ so _ liberating.

The two inhibitor blocks stationed around the core stand taller than the other turrets. They shine slick in the weak light through the fog, familiar from his own base, but things are different somehow, and Erik could cry he feels so glad to finally be here. The nexus sits beyond them, glassy and bright.

“I’m at inhibitor,” he says. “Ready when you are.”

Matt whoops. “Nice! Those two are going to be on cooldown for a while, so no worries. Watch for me and everything.”

It’s amazing. _ Damn, I wish I could take nexus right now. Honestly. _If only inhibitors were normal turrets without the voltage; if he runs through he’ll get blasted with 500 volts and fry. Once again, another amazing way to die.

The minimap blinks furiously on his wrist, and a short inspection shows three things, all of them encompassing too many things Erik is extremely hesitant to dive into.

First, Lukas and the Rook are out there in midlane, except the Rook is getting beat into a literal meat sack by none other than Anya and once again it is so disturbing Erik cannot look at it. Second, Matt is probably two strong hits from dying, though he’s drinking three different boosters at once in typical Knight fashion. And third, Leon is dominating to the point of halving health in a single hit, numbers so high even Knights would have trouble hitting them.

“What the fuck,” says Erik aloud.

(Matt himself is doing 75% of that damage per hit. What the fuck!)

Through the fog, Matt approaches inhibitor now, Lukas and Leon hot on his tail, Anya and the others lagging behind a little. That shudder of revulsion runs through Erik from head to toe.

Matt clears his throat, out of breath. “Go for it, Erik.”

Say no more. Erik’s already planted a set of explosives over both inhibitors, another item he never uses but always builds, and the nanopaint is starting to flake off his clothes at the wrinkles. The inhibitor towers shiver every time one of the bombs goes off, and yes Erik likes to think of himself as a cooled-down person but right now he’s so ready to scream he’s so happy.

He doesn’t even care that Edward pretty much dropped out of the match and Anya’s stomach-churningly brutal. They’re actually winning for once and it’s quite disturbing. Anya breaks into a sprint and hurls herself into the fucking _ concrete and metal _ pillar and it _ wobbles _.

A concrete pillar, wobbling. Explosives weakened it, sure, but _ still _.

Everything after that is an immense blur of panicked excitement. Leon and the Queen try to snipe but it’s all too easy to dodge, and those half-health hits are doing nothing at this point. Anya’s already going for the second inhibitor, Matt firing blindly, and the others come off cooldown, Erik gets a couple good stabs in, two assists, then another kill, everything smearing at the edges but his body moves on its own. There’s Leon, and faint thoughts of many things and somethings run across his mind.

(But the bird can wait.) Erik has never felt so amazing in his entire life, this immense power after every hit and every dodge and every step.

“Don’t lose sight of it now,” Lukas says, still just as flat as he always is though Erik’s having the time of his life. “Go for the nexus core. Let’s go.”

Matt crows something unintelligible but it’s not even annoying anymore as they start hitting through the nexus, this glowing orb surrounded by those familiar spikes of rock, but once again it’s not in their base, it’s in someone else’s. The glasslike material cracks once, twice, he keeps striking with the flat of his knife while Matt snips up shots at anyone who tries to get close.

Things stop for a moment. Erik’s knife stops midway and there is a booming premonition in his head, a voice carried on the wind. 

It’s disturbing, immensely so, this thought that comes to him so vividly. It’s a clarity that only comes around on the Board, in this dream-state off level where things are primal and scary.

Terribly, he knows in the deepest cavities of his heart that it’s true.

_ Beatrice and Mina knew. They knew, and they’re dead now. _

The knife falls out of his hands, and the enemy nexus bursts and fizzles and they’ve won, but it’s too late for Beatrice, too late for Mina, for the two of them. Who knows? It’s probably too late for Erik and Lukas and Matt too, it’s late, and though the artificial sun shines up high down here Erik knows it’s really deep in the lull of night. Dead of night, whatever.

_ I need to talk to Lukas and Matt about this. And Leon. Leon first? _

It doesn’t feel like he’s really thinking about it, and he probably isn’t, since the Board is melting away before his eyes and the match is ending and so he’s waking up to tranquilizers in his head and Erik briefly wonders if he’ll forget about these thoughts too, the way he forgot about those dreams and words on the verge of death, on the verge of waking up. Is there anything different about the two, anything visible to the naked eye?

His head is starting to hurt as his consciousness fades up a level and it’s all good. Things are all good.

“Jeez, he’s taking a while, huh?” Matt’s voice blares into his right ear.

“Shut up,” says Lukas.

Erik’s eyes are still closed, vision reddish under his eyelids. Opening them seems like a distant dream of a thought.

_ A faraway premonition _, he thinks.

Matt exhales long, the sound warped in Erik’s ears. “Thank god they’re gone.”

“Shut up,” says Lukas again.

“I’m serious. I don’t care if admin’s spying, that was just nasty.”

A long pause, a long pause where Erik once again feels both too intrusive to be here and too lethargic to extract himself from the situation.

“I’d kill them if I could,” Lukas says, his voice cut from honesty. “If I could.” And though his voice is as flat as it normally is, somehow there’s this depth of emotion conveyed in those words Erik cannot explain, a steady rage and frustration spreading across every word said or unsaid.

“Who?” Matt’s voice isn’t so surprised or inquisitive or anything, flat because he knows.

Erik knows, then, exactly who. And he opens his eyes then and takes a deep breath and looks over to his brother and his brother’s best friend, sitting slouched in their chairs like they’re mourning over someone.

“Who what,” he says, just to cement in the fact that he wasn’t actually eavesdropping.

“Hey, you’re finally up!” Matt breaks out into a grin, gets up to ruffle Erik’s hair and help him out of his chair. “You were out for a while. Anya and Edward are already gone.”

“Nice,” Erik says because it is.

“You sound dead inside,” Lukas remarks. _ As if you aren’t. _

Erik just laughs and gets out of his chair even though his headache is still very faintly there, even though the tranquilizers have turned his legs shaky and slow, and for once he remembers.

_ I need to find Leon, now. _

Erik juggles seven different ways to say it before finally spitting it out, “I gotta go now, see you,” and before Matt can grab him and inquire about what the fuck he’s doing Erik’s already out the door and into the hallway, moving so fast it feels like if he slows down he’s going to fall on his face.

Lukas calls out something he can’t understand. Erik takes a right in (hopefully) the direction of the mess hall, passing people whose faces he can’t process right now, and finally he gets to his destination all out of breath, hands shaking bad.

The mess hall is slowly filling, and there’s Leon at the left side table with what Erik assumes the rest of his team. There’s Kitty and a guy with a ponytail and two stern-looking girls who chat very demurely.

“Erik!”

Erik pays attention just to catch Leon, who has already spotted him and who is now waving fast. “C’mere!”

_ This was such a bad decision _.

Yes, it was, and now Erik will feel like an asshole if he doesn’t go over there and meet four new people but if he goes over it’s guaranteed he’ll make a fool of himself since the tranqs haven’t worn all the way off. _ Where’s Matt when I need him to be a distraction. _

Whatever. Leon’s down to earth enough, so Erik prays the rest of his team won’t be too insufferable.

So Erik makes his way over to them, dodging clumps of people milling freely between tables, being very careful to not trip and die or anything.

They don’t look so bad the closer he gets, which is good. Leon smirks and waves and it’s looking a little bad now.

“Erik,” he says. “Good game, good plays. What’s up?”

The rest of his team is eyeing Erik— not exactly furiously, but like furiously without the anger. It’s just very intense and Erik totally isn’t still shaking from the tranqs.

“Tranqs haven’t worn off all the way.” Stating the obvious. Shit, he’s supposed to ask that back now, right? “You?”

Leon laughs and his team’s collective stare dims to a manageable glance, thank god. “I’m good. Had trouble with lucidity all game, probably because the tranq doses here are a little different.” A pause runs through then and it’s honestly a little uncomfortable, Erik still standing-hovering awkwardly around as Leon drinks his boosters quick.

Leon coughs, looks up. “So, let’s go?”

“Oh my god,” says the guy with the ponytail, rolling his eyes. “Leon, you just sat down one minute ago.”

It’s very familial. Leon just shrugs and stands up. “Oops.” Then, to Erik: “C’mon. I see we have some things to discuss. If you’re ready.”

“Are you done exposing me?” Erik tries and fails to not smile as he says this. The stern girl with long hair turns to Kitty and whispers something, both of them giggling, and now he’s really exposed. Shook.

Leon does the _ thing _ where he shakes his hair out of his eyes and parts it again and now Erik’s rushing to keep up as they exit the mess hall into the hallway. Normally at this time the hall is freezing, but somehow Erik’s flustered and sweaty after speedwalking after Leon, whose stride seems so easy and normal compared to his own awkward hobbling.

“So,” Leon says. “How was your vacation?”

“I—” Erik stops, tries to think before he acts for once. “Do you—? Do you know, you know, what’s going on, like. I don’t know. You know what I’m referring to.”

Yes, he sounds entirely stupid, and this topic also scares him and makes his head overheat and deep fry itself. Better safe than sorry. Leon sticks his hands in his pockets and stares up at the ceiling, his pace slowing.

“I came here for a reason,” Leon says, and then he makes a sharp turn so he’s staring right at Erik. “For your information.”

“And that reason is?”

It’s tense, thick between them, and Leon bites the inside of his cheek.

“We’ll talk about the reason some other time. Tell me, though, how’d your break go?”

Erik takes a stuttering breath and then another and another. It’s starting to make him feel a little sick, the bird awakening deep from within, and so Erik puts his hands in his pockets too to ground himself before he answers. Leon leans against the opposite like a patient therapist.

“I thought about things,” Erik says finally. “About the song, about being here.” Here comes the headache.

“And?”

“I’ve been here my entire life, for an indefinite amount of time. I don’t know how old I am.” It already hurts his head to say it, and Erik doesn’t know if he even fully understands the implications of those statements.

Leon, however, just nods very sagely. “Those are all true statements.”

“Wait—” _ How? What? Who? _

“Keep talking,” Leon says, and this is a completely different side of him, no longer earnest and witty and sly but solid and smooth and one-dimensional, and Erik won’t lie and say it doesn’t deeply disturb him. Those catlike eyes settle deep into him, amber-brown set in stone.

“And—” And here he has to stop, because he can’t continue this sentence anymore, because Erik knows exactly what he has to say. “Two of my teammates knew.”

Leon stares across. His gaze is frozen solid.

“They knew, and they’re dead now.”

It’s like Leon’s suddenly deflated, and his rigid posture slips down to the usual slight slouching, and Erik lets out a long slow breath he never knew he was holding.

Leon nods now. “They’re dead. That’s also a true statement. Anything else you want to say?”

_ What the fuck. All my relaxation from that deflation is out the window, what the fuck. At first I was on autopilot, and I was on autopilot when I said that, but now what the fuck. I’m scared. Jesus, I am, I’m so scared, more than I always am. He looks like he’s going to kill me, like he’s asking for last words before I die. I trust him but he’s going to kill me. Maybe not now, but sometime, I’m going to die at his hands, I am so fucking scared now it’s wild. _

So he says that exactly. “Are you going to kill me?”

A long, carved-out sigh.

“No. I’m not.”

“Why’d you show me the music,” Erik forces out at last.

“I showed you it for a couple reasons,” Leon says, “but I think they’re easy enough to figure out without me saying. You realize what’s going on, right? They’re listening right now, Erik, and admin will turn a blind eye like they did with me and my team coming here, but you know what’ll happen to you if we say too much aloud in this conversation.”

A bolt of unadulterated fear shoots through the center of Erik’s forehead and this conversation is very quickly building into major panic attack material. “What?”

“Exactly what happened to Beatrice and Mina.”

He’s so scared. He’s so, so scared, and it pools in his stomach in a churning ocean of dread, Erik’s drowning and it’s so, so bad. And yet he can’t not ask the question, no matter how little he wants to know the answer. In the end, he’s back on autopilot again and Erik hears it come out like he’s outside of his own body.

“What happened to Beatrice and Mina?”

Leon lets out another long, long sigh, and he points to their right where the hallway forks off to the dorms. “Go to bed and you’ll see. I told you, they’re listening.”

“Who the fuck is they.” And now there’s a little bit of anger swelling back up, coming up his throat like vomit, mostly just because Erik’s ready to actually vomit. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit!

Leon starts to blur in front of him, and his eyes shift frenzied, scared too, angry, all of it. “Please. Go to bed. Go to sleep. I’ll tell you.”

_ This is fucked up. This is so fucked up. _

_ What have I done? _

Erik’s feet are numb like the rest of his body but he somehow swivels away, turns toward the dorms, makes his way to the room he and Lukas have shared for his whole life, and as he crawls into his bed Erik cannot stop the fear and anger and Beatrice and Mina come back up, his mind regurgitating her angelic smile, her ascended smile, so high above, and he feels extraordinarily off level as he drifts up and out.

Sleep comes and it comes too quickly. Immediately Erik’s aware he’s dreaming, and in this dream he is still lying in his bunk still as a corpse. But this isn’t his dorm anymore.

It’s Beatrice and Mina’s.

Mina sits on the bottom bunk, Beatrice leaning against the bedpost, and they’re talking the way they always did, sweet and soft and things feel ever so normal.

“We will,” Mina says, and she brushes her bangs out of her eyes. “I promise. I already figured it out, that we’re—”

And here there’s a screeching noise, so loud it sends shivers through Erik’s _ eyes _, as if the dream is trying to censor what she’s saying, Beatrice’s face distorting grotesquely into a scrambled mess for a second, and suddenly everything is back to the way it was.

“And we’ll get out, I swear,” Mina says. “Once we’re off this level and in the real world, it’ll be easier to get Matt and Lukas and Erik. I guarantee it.” She stops, stutters. “I swear.”

Something in her voice shudders. “I promise, Beatrice.”

Beatrice’s eyes fill with unrestrained emotion and she stares up at the ceiling.

“I know.” Her voice is raspy and quiet and they are all quiet for a while.

“I love you,” Beatrice says then, plainly, head still tilted up, and in that moment it’s the most obvious thing on the planet, the whole world shrinking down to only the two of them in this one moment. The very core of Erik’s heart melts into a warm nothingness in his chest.

Mina leans further into her pillow and her eyes close, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. “I’m scared, oh my god.”

It’s terrible and beautiful and they aren’t even touching and it’s so incredibly, unspeakably intimate.

“It’s alright,” Beatrice says at last, even though it clearly isn’t. “I believe you. We’ll leave.”

“You ready?” Mina says, eyes still closed, lying in her bed still, and she breathes slow and audible. “We need to go soon. They’re listening.”

And she sits up, and more tears are flowing and flowing. “I’m sorry you couldn’t say goodbye.”

Beatrice is miraculously calm and settled despite the tears and the apologies, a feat Erik cannot remotely accomplish right now. “It’s okay,” she breathes, quiet, and then she rubs at her eyes gently. “Matt and Lukas will know. The words are just too plain.”

“I know,” says Mina, voice wobbling dangerous.

Beatrice takes a shuddering breath too, the most emotional Erik has ever seen her. “They’re too hard to say.”

And then they’re silent and at last, after an eternity of slow breathing, Mina slowly removes herself from her bunk, steps silent on the concrete floor. Beatrice reaches out for her, Mina slipping her small smooth hand into Beatrice’s.

Everything in this dream feels so right. Erik could cry.

They lace up their fingers, kiss sweetly, and when they break apart Beatrice takes a flat glossy black tablet out of her pocket, fingers hovering above it, and then her eyes open wide and her mouth dribbles a deep, dark, ruby-red and Mina _ screams _ , this sound fraught with fear, this terribly inhuman sound Erik doesn’t ever want to hear again in his life, and he realizes he just heard it earlier during the glitch. The scream that comes from her mouth is the worst sound he has ever heard. That same machine-like scream of _ terror _ rings and it keeps going in his head, in his ears, a sound Erik will never forget as long as he lives.

There’s a gaping bullet-like hole straight through Beatrice’s neck. She crumples to the floor and the tablet in her hand crunches sharp against the concrete, Mina already kneeling at her side, the blood pooling from Beatrice’s mouth, lips that were on Mina’s a moment ago.

This is so terrible. This is so fucking terrible. He doesn’t want to see this anymore. This is so, so disturbingly terrible, and Erik is frozen in place and can’t turn away from the sight. 

He’s stuck watching Mina check the wound, those heavy tears falling falling and Beatrice’s eyes are still open, gaunt, swimming with terror even though she’s dead. Mina’s sobbing now, another horrible sound that makes Erik’s every nerve scream. She’s not even trying anymore, not even looking at the wound anymore through the tears in her eyes, just crying and crying and crying and hitting the floor with her fist. They are the weakest punches Erik has ever seen in his life.

And she just keeps crying, even as the door swings open and white-clad masked admins come in with those fucking nightsticks, and she holds Beatrice’s hand and cries even when they wrench her away and swing like she’s a fucking pinata. There are three of them, and two of them restrain her even though she’s not even struggling.

She’s not even struggling. Just crying.

His head feels cemented into place, cemented into just staring at what’s happening no matter how much he wants to look away. And then the third one keeps swinging, and every swing is a dull painful _ thud _, not a crunch but a thud against her shatterproof skull, and her face is already bruising purple and black.

_ They’re beating her to death because it’s the only way to kill her. Holy fucking shit. _

He feels so sick. He is so nauseous and he is so sick.

_ They’re going to hit her with that fucking nightstick until her blood vessels pop. _

Mina’s not even responsive at this point, limp with her arms still pinned by the admins. One of them checks her pulse. The nightstick glints in the lamplight every time and every time it hits the side of her head she makes this noise like a wounded animal, a subhuman kind of noise, not even a whimper it’s so void of _ human dignity _.

Erik doesn’t want to know anymore and he hates this dream and he hates this whole thing and he doesn’t want to see it anymore, he doesn’t want to see this, he doesn’t! Oh my god! She’s still making that gurgling noise every time and dream-Erik actually retches though nothing comes out! _ Oh my god! _

** _Jesus fucking Christ!_ **

The first drops of blood start up, her nose running dark and then she spits a wad of red at the admin hitting her, a splash like a gunshot wound on his pristine white suit, and the admin shoves her so hard she slams into the floor and Erik can no longer see her face, that ravaged, pained face that used to smile like an angel, only the flecking blood on the suits of all three admins, only the quiet noise every time, only her legs from his bunk. She was always small, always slim. Her legs twitch every so often and those small feet nudge up against Beatrice’s body.

And then the noises stop though they keep hitting her. Dream-Erik retches again, and everything makes his heart hurt so bad it’s unreal. But it’s completely real, because this happened, because somehow Leon is bending his dreams to show him Beatrice and Mina, dying. He wants it to be fake. Why can’t it be fake.

Why can’t it be fake. He knows it’s real.

And then the admins stop, and they walk out, still spattered in Mina’s blood, still holding their dented nightsticks, and Erik gets a good long while to just look at her, look at the unnatural tilt of her neck, features swollen beyond recognition. Blood matted in her hair, on her face, glistening in the artificial light of the dorm. Only her eyes are clear of blood, where tears have streaked tracks down her face.

They are open like Beatrice’s.

I’m sorry, god, I’m sorry, I take it all back, I take back everything. I swear it on my life. Take Beatrice and Mina back. I’ll do it, whatever you want. Take them back, please. Take them again, take them away from this place, from the drops of blood on the floor, blood on their mouths, on their lips where they used to kiss, please, god, please, I can’t even see through all these fucking tears and I still can’t move, I’m stuck looking at them, take them back, god. God.

Mina doesn’t stir the way he hoped she would. Neither does Beatrice, because they are well and truly dead, and so Erik cries and keeps crying.

For his brother and for Matt, for Mina and Beatrice, for himself.

_ As long as I live, I swear I will never let them see this. I swear it on my life. You hear that? If Lukas or Matt ever see this dream, this premonition, this replay. _

_ I’m dead. _

Beatrice and Mina are already dead. He’s still looking and it feels like he’s there for years, feels like he’s watching their bodies decompose into skeletons while he’s frozen into this bunk, unable to move, to cry for help, unable to wipe his tears.

It’s terrible, it’s terrible, and then he sits right back up in his bunk and his watch says two minutes total have passed.

_ God. I can’t do this anymore. _

“Leon?” It’s pure instinct, and Erik wants to bite off his tongue the moment it comes out because no, surprisingly, he doesn’t have a fucking death wish, and he doesn’t want to get shot in the neck _ in a room with no open doors or windows _.

(Thank the lord there’s no response, or the really scary shit would have been confirmed and he’s not here for it right now.)

The artificial light buzzes the same way it did back in Mina’s dorm. The air is cold swimming around him, the faint antiseptic smell always in the air much more noticeable, every breath he takes feeling hypersensitive and a little too much. Erik doesn’t want to get up and talk to Leon anymore. He can’t imagine ever wanting to talk to Leon anymore, and none of this makes any sense. Why is he dreaming this? How is he so confident it’s real? Does he even care about anything anymore? So he closes his eyes, preparing to dream more, and he’s not questioning shit this time, he’ll just sleep and see where things take him and if he dies so be it.

Sleep takes much, much longer this time. He doesn’t immediately drop off level, slowly sliding instead, except he’s sliding in dust and so he’s not actually moving for what feels like a small eternity. But things go and gravity does its work on his head, and the dream state arrives sooner than he wants it to.

It always seems to be sooner than he wants it to, no matter how long it takes. He could hover between awake and asleep for years and never mind.

But it comes, and Erik sits on the floor of a carpeted room, plush and strange in the way carpet is if you haven’t stepped on it in a couple months, mostly since Erik has never been on carpet in his life. Everything is a nice pink-orange color, like a fruity drink. Walls, carpet, even the light bulb glass is dipped magenta and then tangerine.

“I like this color,” says Leon, who sits off to the side. “It’s pretty. It’s fruity indeed, like a bold peach. Reminds me of a good sunset, maybe, or the feeling of smooth plastic objects.”

_ That’s one fucked up comparison. _ Erik doesn’t say anything, just watches, just waits the way he feels is natural here.

“It’s good you’re not talking, and it is a fucked up comparison.” Leon scratches his head. “I wouldn’t say anything. Just chill out here for a little, and then we’ll actually talk, sans the riddles and awkward eye contact as an attempt to send a message. Well, I’ll talk.”

_ Huh. What the fuck. _

Leon laughs and leans against the wall. There’s no kind of furnishing, no doors or windows here, just the carpet and the light and the walls. That light glints in Leon’s eyes and amber shifts rosy as Erik watches, a little creepily to be honest, but it’s okay, mostly because he really has nothing better to do, and he takes back his statement of not wanting to see or speak to Leon ever again.

The guy’s not so bad. He’s also the only one who understands what the fuck is going on here.

“I do,” Leon says. “Are you ready to hear it?”

Erik nods and Leon snaps his fingers. Instantly, the wall to their left snaps bright white like a screen, and a video feed starts up on there. There’s cam footage of that same dorm Erik just dreamed in, cam footage like they’re on the Board and he’s checking his ward cams. The angle switches ever ten seconds, the two bodies in the center of the room the way he remembers, and it’s exactly as bloody and disturbing as he thought.

“This isn’t actually a real camera feed,” says Leon. “It did happen. But it’s not from a real camera.” And his voice is soft, and quiet, as if he knows those tears Erik cried, as if he knows, which he probably does.

_ That was wonderfully detailed. Care to explain less? _

Leon barks out a laugh, face breaking into that smirk when he snaps his fingers again and the feed turns off. “My god. My point from that is.”

And he pauses.

“My point is, do you know how you can set up a mock ‘recording’ like that without ever using a camera?”

_ No. Who am I, a smart person? I’d appreciate you actually telling me what’s going on. _

Leon just shakes his head with a rueful smile that seems much too appropriate for the current situation. “Think. Have you ever seen it before?”

And so Erik does. And he has, he’s seen it before, filming without ever using a camera.

(On the Board.)

_ On the fucking Board. _

“That’s correct,” Leon says, and he pushes his hair out of his face. “Highlight reels, plays, whole matches are recorded. You’re off-level, you’re in a dream state. That’s how they can be recorded. They’re dreams, and admin has tech that records your neuron activity while you play in matches so they can build frame by frame recordings.”

Beatrice and Mina— were they in a dream? Are they still alive?

No response from Leon.

Are they? _ Are they? _

“Not on this level,” Leon says and his voice goes flat like he’s an announcer, a spectator, and this has to be the fourth time he’s switched like this, and it’s fucking terrifying. “You saw in your dream, and you saw just as well as I did. Administration shot Beatrice Taylors in the neck, severing her main carotid arteries, and she died nearly instantaneously.”

Shit! No! Erik doesn’t need or want this information, thank you very much, seeing that footage again was enough, remembering it exists is enough, and Leon definitely “hears” all of this in Erik’s head and yet he just keeps on going, playing doctor.

“As for Mina Vanakolian, they struck her in locations such as the side of the skull, and she died of a combination of a major concussion and brain hemorrhage caused by burst blood vessels in her skull, along with major bruising and internal blood loss under the skin due to her beating. Of course, no bones were broken and there were no superficial flesh wounds.”

_ I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this, I don’t, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS! _

And so Leon stops, and he turns his rosy eyes to Erik. “You saw all of that. What happened to them.”

He blinks. Erik doesn’t dare. The peppy tone of the room is now garish and frightening and distorted, the four corners of the room bending and shifting before his eyes.

“Erik, we’re dreaming right now. And when you wake up, you’ll still be dreaming.”

Magenta shifts to blood red and that inhuman scream sounds faintly in the background again, and Erik’s so afraid he doesn’t want to hear or see this anymore, that terrible noise there, and he knows then, he knows.

_ I am in a dream. I have spent my whole life dreaming. I have never actually woken up. _ Erik can’t even begin to process that and yet Leon’s already moving along.

“You’re not really dreaming when you’re ‘awake’, though,” says Leon. “You do realize that, right? It’s not a dream, not a figment of your imagination, because it’s an engineered level housing hundreds of people. It’s like the Board. Right now two levels up, the real Erik is swimming in tranquilizers so strong he’ll probably never wake up from them for the rest of his life. His brain is all wired up to a set of computers. That gory death scene between Beatrice and Mina and admin was mostly to shock their real bodies into a coma, where they will probably physically rot on life support, since it’s technically illegal to kill any of your cohort. They had already severed their tranquilizer lines up in the real world and they were going to leave. You know all of this, Erik, you just never thought about it.”

_ Have I? _

“Shut the fuck up,” Erik says, even though he wasn’t supposed to talk, even though it’s rude and uncalled for and he doesn’t even know why he’s saying it in the first place, and the tears start pouring and he’s yelling now, _ what happened to my no tantrum rule? _

“Shut the _ FUCK UP! _” he shouts, and it’s too late to take it back now.

Leon shakes visibly, cowers, so different from just two seconds ago, and Erik just cannot understand a single thing. Why is he so inconsistent? Why is he saying these things? Why does Erik know it’s all true? What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening?

Who _ are _you, Leon?

“Who am I,” Leon says sadly, and his voice droops and he slouches. “I’m sorry, Erik, it’s hard to manipulate things down in this level. It’s on the same tier as the Board—”

The feed of the world around him cuts off suddenly, everything flashing black for a second before things are normal and punch-colored again, and Leon buries his head in his hands.

“Fuck,” he mumbles. “Fuck. This dream’s on the same tier as the Board, but they have actual tech on the Board to balance out the level. I’m doing this all in my head. Sorry. Emotions, actions, everything’s kind of fucked up right now. I spent all my energy on Beatrice and Mina, just so you could see. But now I’m getting a little too tired to steady things.”

_ How considerate. _

Leon laughs and throws his head back. “Yeah, I know. I’m real charming. I came to West Point— well, to your level— to talk to you about this. I’m from up there. Some things shouldn’t be said about me right now, regrettably, but I can guarantee I have your interests at heart.”

_ Sounds fake, but okay. _

“Oh, I’d be surprised if you accepted it,” Leon says calmly.

_ Yeah. I don’t. You still haven’t answered the question. _

“Who I am?”

_ No, how many fingers you have on your right hand. Who the fuck are you? Why are you here? _

Leon sighs lengthily, blinks, and when he blinks the room echoes with noise that was never there. “I’m. Well, okay, I’m not really supposed to be here. I manipulated the level settings so I could get in with the rest of my group, but I didn’t come here because I’m a test subject. We came here for the causes of the Reformation.”

Am I a test subject? Everything twists far up to the ceiling now, and Erik closes his eyes before he gets too dizzy.

“No, you’re not really,” Leon says.

Then what am I? If I’m not really a test subject at West Point Military Institution, if I’m not really a genetically modified human being, if I’m not someone’s brother, what am I? It’s true. Erik really has no idea what he’s supposed to be or what he’s supposed to feel at this point. His head starts to throb again and he’s in so far deep it still hasn’t sunken in fully, and part of him wants to wake up and laugh with his brother and Matt and Beatrice and Mina and execute some nice plays and sleep like a rock.

Leon clenches his teeth and the walls crunch and stay silent. “Sorry. I can’t say right now. All I can say is that my team and I are working with the Reformation effort, and I’m trying to keep you and others safe while we enact our plans, but mostly that involves you knowing what’s happening. But I can’t tell you anything.”

“Are you fucking kidding me.” Oops, not really.

“I wish.”

Leon stops, glances up again, burying his fingers into the carpet when he turns to Erik. “I really am sorry, Erik. I don’t want you to get killed, but I need you to know things, and it’s pretty much impossible to do both at the same time.”

“Your concern is so touching,” Erik says, and at this point he doesn’t even care he feels so dead inside. “Got any more useful information? Because I haven’t heard anything yet.”

_ Ah, yes, covering up my deep internal fears and feelings by being snarky and mean to everyone and everything around me. What a tactic. What an intelligent, wise decision on my part. _

Leon’s starting to look a little more than frustrated for good reason. “I don’t know. I don’t want any blood on my hands. I showed you their final moments.” He stops, starts, stops again. “And I told you some things. So you know things now, they just haven’t sunken in and all, but if I say anything else they’ll figure out I’m an imposter. We have to leave soon, anyway. And I’m sorry I can’t say anything else. I really am.”

Will I ever know?

“Yes, undoubtedly.”

Am I going to die soon?

A long, long pause begins, a pause in which Leon curls up against the wall and takes deep breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. I really am, Erik. No, you’re not, I can guarantee.”

And then: “I hope you can remember. Jesus, this fucks me up. I hope you can remember.”

In the upper-left corner of the room, shadowy and dark, a small square blinks off as if the walls are all electronic panels, leaving a black square on the wall. Before Erik can say anything or ask or figure out what the fuck is going on, another black square appears. And then another. And then the room starts to crumble all around him, neat sections of the walls flipping black, and Leon puts his head in his hands again.

“I’m sorry, I’m useless right now,” he says. “I’m sorry. You just need to re—”

His voice twists and crackles and Erik tries to reach out, to grab him, but the carpet beneath his feet decomposes and he falls away. A high-pitched whine starts up in his ears and static comes out of Leon’s mouth.

_ Help! Jesus, help me, help me, I can’t do this. _

Erik’s drowning in black, and it’s so dark, and he’s so tired, and he’s still falling from that mess of a dream, and he just needs to _ know _ and to _ hear _. What is he supposed to remember? What is he supposed to know? The disturbing nature of the dream, that instability with Leon’s twisting face, the shaky orange carpet under his knees, he’s just so fucking scared and he can’t even think about this stuff without getting a terrible headache.

Or can he?

Erik’s finally aware the falling has stopped, replaced with the coolness of his bedsheets. Only a couple minutes have passed. His head whirls horribly and the thought of getting up makes him feel nauseous.

_ Every single time I have a conversation with Leon I want to sleep forever. Jesus Christ. _

There’s no headache, though, not yet, so Erik strains to remember, to know. (If Leon says he can do it, Erik doesn’t doubt that.)

He’s scared as fuck and wakes the bird up at last.

It stretches its wings, and it pecks at his subconscious, talons digging into his shoulder. The bird has those intelligent eyes, that yellow beak prodding him awake. So Erik crawls deeper into his sheets and thinks and prays because he’s terrified. Of what, he has no idea, but he’s just scared, so much he’s shivering even though he’s not cold.

_ What did he want me to remember? _

_ You have to think, Erik. What can you remember? _

_ I remember… I remember tubes in my arms, and Lukas standing over me, people with masks. This is a dream. A dream, and Leon was in a dream within a dream. And I’m in a dream right now. And my eyes are open and yet somehow they’re closed somewhere, on some level. Like on the Board. Like when I’m panting heavy but I know somewhere I’m still and dead-feeling, somewhere up there. Somewhere up there. _

_ There are tubes in my arms up there. _

He can really feel them, plastic taped to his forearms, a smooth warmth over his face and body, and for a moment Erik slips. His head spins so bad and he’s floating somewhere, warm. Like a womb. He’s soft and warm and he’s slipping bad, and there’s a tingle in his scalp, millions of individual pinpricks haloing his head.

“Erik!”

Erik opens his eyes, and it’s Lukas standing down there staring up, Matt leaning against the doorframe.

“Erik, what the fuck,” Lukas says plainly, his voice betraying a little too much emotion for Erik’s taste, and Matt studies the floor intensely.

“What. The. Fuck,” Lukas says again.

Erik takes a deep breath and makes awkward eye contact. “What?”

“You’re sleeping so much and this whole situation is so fucked up. There’s something seriously wrong here. I don’t want to pry, but what the hell are you doing.” His voice doesn’t raise or lower, and yet there’s this shaky raw feeling, maybe because Lukas actually swore or because he’s actually showing emotions for once.

Erik debates telling them everything, even though he knows admin’s watching and they would easily be killed right now, and he misses his brother, the Lukas who put different flowers in the vase on the table every day, the Lukas who laughed when Matt pulled his hair, even though Lukas is still exactly the same.

_ Flowers? _

His head doesn’t throb anymore and yet he knows the memory just fine, the tilt of a couple daffodils in a clear plastic jug, Lukas’s slim fingers arranging them easily on their table, and Erik opens his mouth to ask Lukas if he remembers those daffodils.

Jesus Christ. Instead he says, “I’m tired,” and Lukas stares up at him so sadly, as if he knows just how tired Erik really is.

“Erik,” Matt says. A building frustration nets in his voice. “Seriously. What’s going on. I didn’t want to ask about your hiatus, but you’re always _ sleeping _ even though it’s two in the afternoon. I call bullshit. Can you at least tell your own brother what’s going on?”

Lukas just shakes his head, turns away. It kind of snaps Erik’s heart.

Because he does know how much Lukas cares, how he’s somehow very fond of Erik even though Erik’s trashy as all hell, and he knows how upset Lukas probably is right now.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says now, and he falls back onto the bed so they can’t see the tears in his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. You don’t have to worry. It’s just weird without Beatrice and Mina here. I’m tired.”

Lukas doesn’t say anything, just turns and leaves, and Erik listens to his brother’s familiar steps out the door.

“I’m sorry, too,” says Matt, no anger or vengeance in his voice, and he leaves as well and Erik’s left close to tears though he can’t seem to feel anything at all.

_ What the hell am I going to do about them? What am I even supposed to do myself? Leon literally just told me the most confusing shit and I kind of hate him for all of this. I’m not supposed to know, but if I want to stay safe I have to know things, and I have to remember? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to know or remember. My past? My circumstances? Why we’re here? Is there something I’m missing here? _

Yes, there definitely is, and it’s something he has to figure out on his own. In case Erik hasn’t made it clear enough, he always needs to be carried by others because he’s fragile, so now he’s suffering for it terribly like he always does because he doesn’t want to actually put effort into thinking and remembering and digging up this stuff.

_ I just don’t understand anything. I don’t. _

And his head goes back to Beatrice, to Mina, the dribble of red in the corner of Beatrice’s mouth when she fell. 

(Erik know’s he’s never forgetting those drops of blood for as long as he lives, the way you just know things sometimes.)

_ (I don’t want to see that blood in Lukas’s mouth, that gaping hole in his neck, the emptiness sitting in his eyes.) _

Erik takes a couple good deep breaths even though they no longer do anything to alleviate his stress and fear. _ It’s good. It’s all great. _

He can’t remember a single thing and the more he tries the more he just comes up with memories from West Point. They’re all kind of stupid and only make him hate this place more. Erik can’t feel the tubes or the warmth anymore, or anything, really, because his arms and legs are all numb, and he thinks about music and being edgy about everything and the fluorescent lights above blur in his eyes.

_ I can’t remember shit. God help me. _

God help him indeed. Erik can’t sleep and he can’t get up and the only thing he can recall is the sun shining through the branches in forest on the Board, that freshness in the air that somehow makes running feel less like a chore and more like a joy, and every step is effortless. The air is crisp and everything’s alright, and the sky yawns open denim-blue above. The watercolor wash of the sunlight across his face and the ground, the glowing green of the trees around him, and then Erik’s small again, running and running, his legs are short and Lukas picks him up and the air smells clear and cold against his cheeks, and everything’s alright. There’s a pastry in his left hand and a soda bottle in his right hand. Everything is okay.

And so the scenery shifts around him, and someone’s holding his hands in theirs, “Erik, I swear on my life,” and the moon hangs up in the sky like a pale hole punched into the sky, and he cannot see any stars through the smoke in the air.

“I swear I’ll find you,” says the someone, and Erik tries to see who it is but they’re already gone, and here he is standing in the gloomy darkness of a back alley alone, the buildings around him a dull gray, and they close in on him and in that moment everything is tilted left, the sky is closing up, and he feels like Lukas is close and getting closer, and Erik wants to find his brother and cry into his shoulder until his eyes swell into ping pong balls in his face.

“We’ll meet again. This isn’t the end.”

This is so fucked up.

The fluorescents above him are back and Erik’s back in his dorm room, sheets pooled at his feet, sweat beading up all around his forehead in a way that’s never happened before.

_ I kind of get it? _

Does he, though? Does he really?

(No. The answer is no, the answer is he needs to think more and remember more because nothing is coming to mind. He saw that weird shit going on and it may or may not have been a memory but he doesn’t know anything else, Erik’s still just as clueless, it’s all going kind of badly, and though Leon told him he’s not going to die soon somehow Erik feels deep in his gut how extraordinarily wrong that is. He’s not so edgy to have a death wish but at the same time he kind of does?)

_ We’ll meet again. This isn’t the end. _

Erik’s not tired at all, but if he goes outside or gets stuff from the mess hall Lukas will spam him with questions about everything and Matt will just stare at him disappointedly, so he settles back into his bunk. _ Maybe I’ll try to remember more things, and maybe I’ll actually understand them this time. _

Oh, who is he kidding. Erik doubts he’ll understand before he dies here, maybe by falling into a coma up there and dying for real, maybe never having another flashback again.

_ I was wrong, though. I’ve definitely heard music before listening to Leon’s song, I’ve been outside and I’ve seen the world, all of it. _ And he does. The memory of that full, round moon is still there, not fading though he dreamed it. It really was like a hole in the sky, he remembers. A hole in the dark. The light at the end of the tunnel, a portal to another place where no promises to meet again happen, no dreams within dreams happen.

_ I really am dreaming. _

Of course, Leon had expressly told him. Of course, it didn’t sink in at all, and it’s only starting to stir in his head now. His fingers feel fucked up for some reason, dead and cold and numb. _ I’m in a dream right now. I’m in a dream where I can die like Beatrice did, because it’s not real life. I’m literally dreaming. _

Chills rack through Erik’s chest and arms and his face twitches involuntarily, and they just keep coming and Erik has a mini seizure in his bed and the world spins and keeps spinning.

_ God. Jesus Christ, save me. _

And Erik remembers the church, those paneled windows glowing angelically, and he remembers singing with a delicate voice, and a voice booms _ GOD IS GOOD, _and he’s floating now. Lukas’s hand sits in his. Everything is wonderful and Erik knows he’s eight years old and he’s going to church with Lukas even though Lukas hates church for some reason, and he seems to know exactly what a church is in this memory. The pastor recites something and he mouths along clumsily.

_ AMEN. _

Erik loses himself now, drifting away from the little wooden church, now sitting in a tree, chatting with his brother, scenery changing so fast he can’t remember any of it, but he’s happy and running and he’s eating something sweet and he remembers in his own weird way.

“God, I love you,” someone says to him, “I love you,” as tender as Beatrice’s last moments.

Erik sleeps and keeps on sleeping all through the night.


End file.
